There are a number of ways to block spam. If you have a blog, you’ve probably tried a few. If you’ve ever commented on a blog, you’ve probably seen a few in use.

I’ve been using Akismet since I started blogging, and I’ve been happy with it. But there are other ways. Captcha images, math plugins, questions, and more.

For now it’s “Is fire hot or cold?” and “What is the sum of 7 and 4?” but who knows what the future holds. Someone out there is probably working on an anti-spam plugin that requires you to solve physics and/or calculus equations!

Before you can comment, we have to make sure you are qualified as a rocket scientist. Just answer this simple question and your comment will be approved:

What is the cosine of an ultraviolet wave traveling at a velocity of 27 kilojoules with a frequency of 3, as it extends perpendicular to the angle of inference, in an isotonic solution?

While the grad students go try to figure that out, let’s look at what the people with street smarts are doing: WP-SpamFree

It’s simple. Few spam bots can process JavaScript, and few can process cookies. Ever fewer can process both. However, 99% of your visitors will have no problems with either JavaScript or cookies.

So they made a plugin that uses JavaScript and cookies to block the bots while avoiding the need for captchas and math questions. It’s not rocket science - it’s better than rocket science. I prefer to use the term practical.

I’ve been using it for a week or so and it has blocked 100% of comment spam, giving Akismet a well-deserved vacation! The only thing that has made it past WP-SpamFree was trackback spam, but Akismet caught that with no problem.

WP-SpamFree gets Sucker’s Seal of Approval!

Photo credit: IRRI Images

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You know the little 16×16 favicon images you put on your website? They’re ok, and you have to do one for each site, but they don’t really stand out.

Now, thanks to a new thing called BlogIcon, you can add an 80×80 image to your blog that’s like an avatar that follows you around.

“Like a favicon but bigger” you could say.

You might be thinking, “wait, can’t you do this with MyBlogLog or Gravatar?” The answer is yes, but then you have to waste time signing-up for those stupid services. With BlogIcon, you just upload an image to your site. That’s it!

If you want to learn more or see some examples, take a look at this post at BlogStorm.

But the point of this post is to say that BlogIcon is now installed right here on InternetMarketingSucks, so add a BlogIcon to your blog and it will show up with each comment you make!

(Please add a blogicon on your blog and leave a comment here so we can see how it looks!)

*Update* Apparently there is no longer support for BlogIcon. And it doesn’t work with Wordpress 2.5 or newer. So avoid BlogIcon, it’s a waste of time.

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Sphinn, if you didn’t know, is the Digg-like website all about SEO and affiliate marketing stories. It’s a great refuge from Digg, where all the users love to bury anything that looks like SEO stuff. So there’s no need to game Digg when you can spam Sphinn legitimately and reach your perfect target market!

I noticed the easiest way to do it is to use this Wordpress plugin, the SphinnIt button.

That adds a nice Sphinn button to each post and it updates if your story is already on Sphinn. It’s at the bottom of each post here on Internet Marketing Sucks, so feel free to sphinn my stories to test out the button.

The button is nice, but how good is Sphinn? Is it really worth it?

It depends. I’ve had some stories on there that got a few sphinns. Never made it to the home page though…

Even so, it has sent me a few visitors. And Sphinn visitors seem to stay an average of 1:20. Not bad, especially because it was 97% new visitors. However, most referrals were better, and even StumbleUpon users (over the same time period) stuck around an average of 1:35.

Hell, Digg users stayed an average of 3:32! Digg beating Sphinn was a real surprise in that regard, but Digg barely sends me any traffic at all, so Sphinn still wins in the end.

Let’s see if anything changes if one of my stories makes it to the front page… (hint hint *cough* vote for me *cough*)

P.S. Did I mention that every time I visit Sphinn, I get sucked into reading every single story on their home page? It’s not that they’re any good, just that the titles really suck you in.

P.P.S. Did I mention anything about that blue Sphinn button at the end of each post? It just says “click me” doesn’t it??

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The thing I love about blogging is that so many experts are giving out great information free of charge. (And I mean experts that know what they’re doing, not the “gurus” who just want to scam you…)

I was hoping that with all this free (but useful) information, the fake “gurus” and their get-rich-quick scams would slowly get filtered out and forgotten.

But now I’m wondering if a new Wordpress plugin designed to turn your blog into a paid-membership website might cause some problems.

First of all, the plugin costs $25, so it’s one of the rare plugins you have to pay for. But then it makes it so if anyone wants to read your blog, they have to pony up and open their PayPal wallet…

If this company was venture-backed and had a huge marketing budget, they’d probably make a big stink like PayPerPost and (more recently) the BuyBlogComments comment spamming service. I just can’t imagine the true bloggers condoning these members-only blogs.

Fortunately, I don’t think any smart people will pay to read a blog, so I don’t see this making a huge impact. The useful blogs already out there will certainly remain free, because those smart people are happy to help others.

But the gurus on the other hand…

The “gurus” might just start getting into blogging if they can profit. The $97 ebook phenomenon might slow down, only to see a surge of $37/month membership blogs. This in turn will give blogging a bad name, much like the internet marketing industry as a whole.

I don’t want to read the “Make $16,298 overnight on autopilot just by stuffing a few envelopes” blog, but a total newbie might. And they might just get suckered in because of the marketing principle that says something like charging a price makes your product seem more valuable and/or exclusive, and in turn more people will go for it than if you were giving it out for free.

(You know those companies that charge $75 for a plain cotton t-shirt? It’s the same principle.)

Anyway, that price tag, coupled with a long sales letter, might just attract some followers. And once they get roped in, it will take a while for the experts and helpful forum members to get these innocent newbies back on track.

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Just after writing all about how to deal with splogs, I found a new plugin that will let you add stuff to your feed.

This is great for dealing with splogs, because it’s much easier and faster than manually adding a note at the end of each post. Plus, it only shows up in your feed, so regular site readers aren’t inconvenienced.

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Apparently I didn’t think this list through…

While I realize the importance of Site Maps (I use normal sitemaps along with XML versions for Google,) I never realized how powerful the Sitemap-generating Wordpress plugins could be!

I just stuck with my regular routine, but from now on I should probably put some more effort into the sitemaps. And for that, this sitemap plugin is great!

Next time I write a ‘best plugins’ list, I’ll include this one instead of mentioning two plugins that do the same thing (i.e. Digg This and Digg That.)

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RSS is a great way to distribute and syndicate content to your readers, but it also makes it easy for the spammers to steal your content. One way they do this is by setting up spam blogs, or “splogs.” These blogs have no original content; instead, they pull in your content via RSS and pass it off as their own.

They’re using your content without so much as a link back to your site!

Earlier this year, this very blog was included in one such site at adwhores.com. I wasn’t too pissed considering the blog had a PR5, and if I played my cards right, I could get some nice backlinks. But then I noticed the PR5 was faked…

The good news, though, is that the splog got shut down within 2 days. Even better, I learned a thing or two about dealing with this problem (other than a typical DMCA notice to Google.)

And it’s a good thing, because that splog is back online and stealing more content than ever! They’re even stealing Shoemoney’s feed!

So here are a couple things you can do to protect yourself from splogs, even if you don’t know they’re out there:

First, always link back to your previous posts when you mention something you’ve blogged about before. Or link to one of your category pages. Whatever you do, just be sure to have links to other parts of your site within the post itself. That way, anyone stealing your content is giving you backlinks, and maybe even traffic.

Second, you can put a little notice at the bottom of each post. Something like “this post originally appeared at mysite.com.” That should get you a little link love, too. You can even use Adsense Deluxe to automate the process.

Third, make use of all the Feedburner options. Feedburner allows you to place links in your feed such as “Email this” and “Save to del.icio.us” If those are in your feed, they’ll show up on the splog. So if someone decides to bookmark the post that way or email it to a friend, they’ll be saving your URL (not the splog’s.)

(Notice my feed URL in the status bar )

And if you do know about the splog, and it is totally worthless and spammy, just file the DMCA notice along with these tips from FightSplog.

[This post originally appeared at InternetMarketingSucks.com]

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