How To Make Money Online by Blogging, Designing & Creativity » Chit Chat

Spam comment pervention tips

Shannon Lilly — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:19:47 +0000

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!

WordPress won’t delete thousands of spam / pending comments at once?

Shannon Lilly — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:15:08 +0000

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!

Whats most important?

Shannon Lilly — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:27:02 +0000

Sometimes people (guys) are real jerks, we let our emotions run us even though we know we shouldn’t. Its a shame the consequences have to be so tuff. But with that said it does take a real man to strikeout right before he hits that home run

To days post is simply a list of whats most important in my life these will change one day soon (mostly #2 and #3).

1. God

2. Parents

3. Girlfriend

4. Work / Business

5. Responsibilities / Paying Bills / Fixing Problems

6. Blogging

I believe this order is ideal for life to go smooth, this is of course my own opinion but it works out pretty well for me.

Its time to rock it!

Shannon Lilly — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:34:27 +0000

Hey guys,

So in the last couple of week a lot has changed for me and today I want to encourage you all to take notice of what is happening and capitalize on it!

Magazine, tv and other publications are starting to go out and the internet is just getting bigger and bigger as you read this!

The internet can’t be stopped and its just waiting for the next big invention to hit!

You could be the next big thing on the net so what are you waiting for? NOW IS THE TIME PEOPLE! Get To It!

Life comes at you fast, are you ready?

Shannon Lilly — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Hey Everyone, I haven’t posted in awhile and I apologize for that, however today I want to talk a little bit about life and how we should always be prepared for curve balls!

See I was blogging along and all was fine and dandy, I had money in the bank, a new bike and paintball gun to play with and I thought life was great!

It was until I got my bill from the IRS for over $300…

I made out the check (even though it hurt) and within 1 week they took the money. I was down to my last dollar before I made any more, luckily I am back up to where I should be but I still have to be careful with what I spend.

The moral of the story is I should have been ready for a blow like that, I half way was and that’s the next part of this story…

The day I made out the IRS check I emailed an old advertiser that had stopped advertising with me. I simply emailed them asking if they would like to grab an add on my site for a cheap price since my audience has grown since they were last with me. They quickly agreed to a $50/mo deal and paid me for 2 months in advance. Basically I made $100 that day and I now have them hooked in as a monthly customer!

Its a great feeling and I am now generating over $700/mo online from my various businesses and blogs.

I am super excited for the next couple of months and years to come with you all but I really need ideas to make posts about. So please send your ideas to me or I may just have to ask some buds for guest posts or something.

God bless guys and keep the juices and green stuff flowing!

Summer Cleaning + IBB Update + Life News

Shannon Lilly — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:52:55 +0000

Hello Everyone,

Today I want to talk about cleaning up your blogs for summer, I know summer is nearly half over but its better late then never.

Today I went through my blog sidebar and cleaned things up a bit, I removed the Clickbooth affiliate banner because it has not been doing well and instead replaced it with a banner for my ebook.

I also took out unneeded links and added an about me section as well as a quick easy way for you all to connect with me via twitter, youtube and technorati.

I believe this new setup will prove to be more useful then the last sidebar (be sure and let me know what you think).

I hope you all take the opportunity to look at your blogs this summer and clean up your sidebar a little bit!

IBB Update

So I am going to bring back the videos here on ibb! That’s right, those awesome video casts I used to do will be back starting sept 1st provided the blog has generated enough income itself for me to invest in a flip mino hd camera. I’m half way there this month so if you want to help out and make it happen grab a advert slot today.

I will also be working on a little something for all my current and new newsletter subscribers, I think its time to really give back to you all and I am going to develop a little section I like to call Free WordPress Themes for anyone who wants them! The great part is all you have to do is signup to my newsletter and you will get free access to them!

I will also be putting a new theme for the blog up once I have time to work on it, right now this one will suffice for atleast the summer time but come winter I want something different and more organized so be watching out for that to!

Life News

So I found out this morning that my grandma died last night, she and my grandpa had moved back up north a year or so ago and my grandma became ill with cancer for I believe it was the 3rd time. This time it got her and she passed away but she is in heaven now and I know she is happy there! I look forward to seeing her again one day!

Why you should check your blog everyday!

Shannon Lilly — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:57:11 +0000

So for the last month or so I haven’t been checking my blog and making sure everything works right. I just assumed it all has because up to that point I had never had a problem…

I WAS WRONG!

That’s right, I should have been checking the blog because as it turns out my email subscription box (that gives away my free ebook) was not popping up when visitors came to my homepage. What does this mean? No subscribers for the last 30 days!

So I went ahead and saw this and fixed it yesterday, in one day I went from 888 rss subs to 896 thats alsmot ten new ones practically overnight! Who knows how many I missed because my subscribe section was not functioning properly!

I am so mad at myself for this but I understand these things happen, I encourage everyone to do minimally a weekly check to ensure everything is working, and don’t be afraid to be a good samaritan either, if you see someones blog not functioning right go ahead and email them letting them know, you may become a friend for life!

What do you want?

Shannon Lilly — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:23:32 +0000

I am always curious to know what my readers really want from me. I always try my best to provide it (within reason).

Today is no different and its time to find out what you all really want to know! Below I have provided a couple of new ideas that I am willing to do to IBB for you all and its up-to you all to decide which you want most!

Video Casts – I have really been slacking off the video casts because video at this point is kind of hard to monetize for cold hard cash but if its what you all want then I could start doing more video posts?

Contests - I know my readers love contests, and I thought we could start running more contests but doing them for shorter periods of time, perhaps something like contests like 2 weeks long.

Free WordPress Themes & Premium – I was thinking about giving out some free word-press themes as well as selling licenses of my main themes for $19.95 each.

Free Domains With Web Hosting Purchase- I thought about starting a web-hosting deal where if you signup to hostgator with my affiliate link I give you a free-domain in return?

Pick one and comment below with why you think it should be that one, let me know guys!

Twitter Contest Update 25 Days Left!

Shannon Lilly — Wed, 06 May 2009 12:09:13 +0000

I am sure most of you remember my twitter contest I posted last month, I wanted to update you all and hopefully spark some more interest in it because I am still about 600 followers away from the goal I was after.

I hope you all join the contest and you can do so by following the below…

How to enter

To enter simply follow these steps…

1. Follow me on twitter

2. Tweet the following message to all your followers:

Just entered the Cash $$ contest. You can win by following @shandaman and retweet http://xr.com/spq. He follows back too!

Contest winner will be announced at the end of May 2009 or once I reach 2,500 followers (whichever comes first). Anyone can enter so use multiple twitter accounts if you want!

Be sure to tell your friends to join as well because it won’t hurt your chances of winning because there are many prizes up for grabs, here they are again in case you forgot…

Prizes

I know you are probably wondering what you will win after doing the above simple steps, well here is a breakdown of the current prizes. More may be added in after some time.

1st Place = $50.00 PayPal Cash
2nd Place = $25.00 PayPal Cash
3rd Place = $10.00 PayPal Cash

PRIZE UPDATE

One of the readers on IBB, Suwari has put up some prizes for the contest! Check out his blogs and prizes below!

http://thingsaboutcomputer.blogspot.com- 2000 EntreCard Credits
http://allblogcontest.blogspot.com – 1000 EntreCard Credits

PRIZE UPDATE 2

Alan Mater, one of the readers here on IBB, is a certified proofreader and offers Professional Proofreading and Editing Services. He’s offering his service as a prize for the contest as well.

http://www.replaceyoursalary.com/proofreading.html – Free article/blog post edit up to 1,000 words!

Twitter Contest – Win Cash $$

Shannon Lilly — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:39:08 +0000

The time has come for me to host my first Twitter contest for InfectedByBugs.com

The only way to enter this contest is to have a Twitter account.

If you don’t have one yet go ahead and register so you can enter and win!

The contest is really simple to enter and Cash $$ is the prize!

I am open to offering other prizes along with the cash $$ so if you have something like an ebook, training course, plugin or other prize you want to offer for free press to your site simply send me an email.