Block Tor List WordPress Spammers
- Comments: 43
- Written on: August 18th, 2008
I was reading a post on Shoemoney.com about how he maintains such a low comment/spam ratio on his posts. He gets a ton of comments and obviously doesn’t read them all, so how does he sort out what gets posted and what is spam?
One of the biggest things he points out is that most comment spam that makes it through Akismet comes from the open list of proxy IP addresses referred to as the Tor Proxy List.
In one swift motion I added every single Tor IP address to my blog’s comment moderation blacklist. Here’s how you can do it too:
Step 1. Open your WordPress Admin Panel (www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin in most cases)
Step2. Left click on the Settings link in the top right corner.
Step 3. Left click on the Discussion option
Step 4. In a new tab open the most recent Tor list in text format.
Step 5. Highlight and copy the complete list of Tor IP addresses
Step 6. Scroll down to the Comment Blacklist section and paste in the Tor list you just copied
Step 7. Left click the Save button at the bottom of the screen
That’s all there is to it! You have just blocked a huge majority of the spammers on the web from posting a comment of fake trackback to your wordpress blog.
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- Comments: 43
Thor, thanks for the info. On a related note, for some reason anytime you comment on my blog Askimet blocks it. I have no idea why.
Yeah, I have noticed that on some of my own blogs as well. Heck, even my own trackbacks are going to Akismet Spam.
I think its because I started using Shoemoney’s related blog posts tool. On the page it warns you it’s powerful and to be careful. I guess I know what they meant now 🙂
Do these IP addresses change? How often does one have to update the list in their admin panel for this to be most effective?
The list URL doesn’t work. Maybe sb can post this list here.
I would also suggest to block all the .ru and .cn class which stand for Russia and China cause more than 50% of spam i coming from this countries.
Sounds like a good idea, I have never heard of the Tor proxy list, I will give it a try. I wonder how has it been working for you? This post is from 2008 I would love to hear an update.
Thanks for the great info. I am in the research phase of building my own blog and am still looking for solutions to this potential problem.
Most people using a proxy list have probably already been banned for spamming or worried that their IP will be banned so they use these proxy’s I’m sure.
I wonder if there is a way to block all proxy servers on my blog to avoid even more spammers.
Thanks I just added this to my blogs. I hope it will cut down on how much time I deal with editing comments.
Thanks. Going to have to go through all of my blogs now and change this over. Looks like a really easy way to help prevent the countless spam comments out there.
Akismet is one of the best things that ever hit wordpress. This advice is still valid today as there are a multitude of spammers using xrumer etc. to automate blog commenting.
Dealing with spam takes up too much of my day. I am going to try this and hope that it cuts down on how much time I spend on it. Thanks
I think that spam is NOT NICE! I hate it when people spam my blog. I love it when people leave valuable comments that add to the discussion though. It’s funny, sometimes you don’t know whether or not someone is a spammer so this list should help me a LOT! Thanks!! 🙂 🙂
I think that spam is NOT NICE! I hate it when people spam my blog. I love it when people leave valuable comments that add to the discussion though.
I think its because I started using Shoemoney’s related blog posts tool.
Yep. That’s what nipped me. Email them, explain what you did. They know shoe and what his tools do. They will lift the ban.
Great tip Thor, thanks for sharing it, hopefully it will help cut down some of the spam comment/trackbacks we get on our blog.
That’s a really sweet feature. I just went through all my blogs and hooked it up. I’ve always wondered why Akismet lets so much crap through, sometimes I don’t even activate the plugin.
Thanks
This is a great way to block wordpress spams..shoe shared some cool tips over there
Great tool for WordPress lovers. At least, this tiresome job can now be automated.
I ll try that today I hope it works.
I just hooked up the copy/paste on on my personal blog- worked like a charm, and saw an instant reduction in spam the next day.
When you first start up a site you don’t mind getting few spam comments here and there since you are excited on reading them all, but after a while it gets such pain in the neck.
Nice Information! I blocked over 500+ spammers of my blog
Great post, didn’t heard of that proxy list, will try right now these, thanks!
Keep on the good work! Nice Information! I blocked over 500+ spammers of my blog
Good tip. Even though my wine blog doesn’t seem to get much spam, my fitness blog got so much I finally just started deleting it all. I’llt ry this to see if it helps.
Thanks for this tutorial! My own company blog is having a lot of trouble dealing with all those comment spammers. Fortunately now I know exactly how to take care of all of them at once! Got any more great tips to fend off these spammers?
yeah shoemoney knows what he is talking about. great info. What i think you guys can try doing is looking on google for premade blacklist ips so that you can maybe load it somehow onto your backend comment prevention apps.
I think that spam is NOT NICE! I hate it when people spam my blog. I love it when people leave valuable comments that add to the discussion though. It’s funny, sometimes you don’t know whether or not someone is a spammer so this list should help me a LOT! Thanks
Do these IP addresses change? How often does one have to update the list in their admin panel for this to be most effective?
i think there is no such premade list of ips that can be load on backend comment prevention apps. also all the time appears new and new ips blacklisted so it will be hard to clean it up.
usually for those living in US or UK or countries like that , they gain 1 static IP , other countries like Vietnam or India have dynamic IP , every time they login their IP changes and make this in-effective , using proxy will make this in-effective as well.
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Good tip, but I happen to know IP-addresses can change time from time for users. It’s not that visitors are locked down to 1 IP address forever. That can change in the meantime though.
Great tip although filtering based on IP-adress isn’t that save I guess. Real spammers might have a workaround for this.
Thanks for this tutorial! My own company blog is having a lot of trouble dealing with all those comment spammers.My latest project are about global crisis.
Amazing! I blocked over 500+ spammers of my blog
thanks , this just helped a lot , but I think you can use Akismat for this as well , it’ll be a bit troublesome to moderate every single comment , but still more effective.
Askimet is quite effective, but a lot of spam does still tend to get through. I am always concerned comments from interested readers get lost within the mass of spam comments.
Very nice, i blocked 100+ spammers of my blog. Thanks for sharing!
Thats a great tip thanks a lot, this will help with a lot of the proxies available too!
Great one that Tor Proxy list, Akismet don’t help entirely though.
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