Did you know that identity theft is growing fast and that bloggers are now being targeted? Identity theft happens for a few reasons and bloggers need to be aware of why they are a big target for identity theft now more then ever!

Granted, identity theft can happen to anyone at anytime so staying on the lookout for it is always smart whether you are a blogger or not, however you may be asking yourself “how do I know if I am at risk for identity theft?” Easy, you put personal information (sometimes more then others because your a blogger and its your job to do so) out onto the net for the public eye to see.

Things like earnings reports, showing off that fancy new sports car or even talking about your new house, phone, computer or gaming system are all red flags you are throwing up to possible idenity thefters. Haven’t you heard of people who twitter they are leaving for the weekend and then there houses get robbed? Same principal applies here guys.

I try to follow one simple rule (need to know basis only). If your readers don’t NEED to know something then you have every right to keep it a secret and to yourself.

Don’t willingly divulge information that could put you at risk such as earnings and showing off those new toys you have acquired, your just asking for trouble.

So you may be asking yourself, what if I already have (shown off) but wan’t to correct the issues that are now haunting me (ie identity theft). I am so glad you asked

Believe it or not there are actually tons of people and places online that can help you, so many in fact its sometimes hard to find out where they are and who the best choice is. Its really pretty simple, you can checkout reviews of the best identity theft protection providers. They are some of the best I have seen on the subject and really worth looking into!

With all that said, identity theft is a growing problem and we really have to help ourselves if we want to see any changes. Don’t wait, start making smart choices about what you put online and be sure you are protected!

Lately I have been talking a lot about comment spam but its an important issue that not many people seem to get right. I got asked via a FaceBook message from a reader what Captcha Comment Plugin I was using on the new re-design.

That question actually sparked this post, because although that one plugin does a fantastic job it takes more then 1 to tango! Today I will be listing some basic spam prevention techniques for comment spam!

The Plugins

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam This is the plugin that puts the nice Captcha code on my comment section that MUST be filled out in order for a comment to get into my system. It works great and has eliminated about 90% of spam comments that I was getting! I highly recommend it! You can download the SI Captcha Anti-Spam plugin free of use!

Good Ol Akismet This is the old standard for WordPress blogs but it works wonders, already blocked over 4,000 spam comments for me! You can read all about it and get install instructions from this website.

AVH First Defense Against Spam Plugin This was an extra little plugin I installed just because it has proven to work for me and some friends since it came out. This plugin basically checks ips of spammers from the past and blocks them from commenting all on the fly. Worth installing! Checkout the download site and install it right away!

As with almost all the wordpress plugins out there, you can now install plugins on the fly from your wordpress admin panel. Read this post here that I wrote for a basic overview on doing that! Its under the “New Comment Protection (& Cleaned up Spam)” section of that post.

I will end this post with a video!

I hope you enjoyed learning how to prevent spam from getting onto your blog. Return the favor by signing up to my newsletter and be sure to tell your friends as well!

If you read my rejuvenating your blog post I wrote a couple days ago then you know how much spam can be sitting in the pending status of your comment section after taking a hiatus from a blog.

These spam comments can reach into the thousands and its time consuming to go through them all and delete by hand.

So today I am going to show you one quick simple method to delete all the comments currently in your pending section of wordpress comments!

Before I did this my database was upwards of 100mb which is very hard to keep track of if I ever need to move servers or anything like that. A large % of that mb was because of all these spam comments I had waiting in the moderation que.

Its vital for me to get rid of these so my database will work quicker, backup easier and overall be more efficient!

Step by step how to do it!

1. Open up your cpanel.

2. Open up MYSQL section.

3. Open PHPMyAdmin

3. Find your database and back it up. Here is a video tutorial on how to backup your database through PHPMYADMIN.  I will assume you can figure it out by following this tutorial but if you can’t just comment below or email me for further help and directions.

Video Tutorial – Backing Up Your Database

4. Now that your database is backed up, return to the main PHPMyAdmin page and open up your database.

5. From here select the wp_comments table.

6. Once in the table click the SQL button at the top of the screen.

7. You will be presented with a box and a “Go” button in the bottom right. Inside this box enter the code below that is green. Make sure to enter it into your SQL box exactly as shown so nothing gets messed up.

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = 0

8. Make sure to enter it exactly as its shown above, this will select and delete all the pending comments in your que. Simply click the “Go” button to make it happen, after you do it will return results saying xxx number of comments deleted. (SUCCESS).

All you have left to do now is log into your wp-admin panel and see how clean and pretty it looks! My suggestion is to install some GOOD comment blocking plugins so you won’t have this problem again!

If you found this useful return the favor by commenting below and by joining my newsletter like tons of others. Enjoy your spam free day!