SuperAntiSpyware: a superb software application that goes through the files sitting on your computer to identify malware and other exploits. Its database is updated on a regular basis. It is not 100% foolproof but does a good job getting rid of annoying spamware on your computer.

SpyBot: a super fast spam destroyer that can capture threats that other suites may not be able to. It has an extensive database of patterns to help you identify nasty spamware before they do major damage on your site.

Hijack This: a must have for anyone running a computer on Windows. It goes through your files and identifies things that spamware may have changed on it. Its reports make fixing your computer much more straight forward.

If you love your blog, you will never use a virus-infected computer to post articles to it. It is just too risky. The above software kits identify and destroy viruses before they can do your business major harm.

Credit: laynecom @ Stock.xchng

Everyone who has owned a fairly popular blog has had to deal with spam comments one way or another. Solutions such as Akismet can capture a ton of spam comments coming your way. But they won’t stop everything. Spammers are always changing their tactics and relying on more sophisticated bots to penetrate your blog’s defense system and leave their garbage on your website. That’s why bloggers should think twice about allowing all comments to get published without any moderation.

If you have tried anti-spam plugins in the past and want to go beyond those to keep your community clean of spammers, you need to pay attention to these 7 items in comments you receive on your blog:

1. anchor text: if people are not using their name to leave a comment on your blog, they are probably spamming. Some people do like to comment on other sites using their site’s name.  I am personally somewhat lenient towards these folks. But in most cases, these types of comments should be deleted too.
2. comment link: you should always check to see what links people are using as they leave their comments on your website. It does not matter how great people’s comments are. If they are linking to a Viagra website, your site could get in trouble. Some people prefer removing and banning these types of commenters altogether. Others just get rid of the problem link or ask for a replacement link. You won’t catch these unless you check outgoing links in your comments.
3. content: I don’t know about you, but I appreciate all the positive feedback that people send my way on my blog. Spammers know that is the case with most bloggers. That is why they use automated positive messages to get their comments and links posted to your site. Some people even include links to malicious websites in their comments. You are better off deleting these comments.
4. links in content: going back to the previous point, you should pay attention to all the links included inside comments (not just in the URL section) on your website. Some links could be beneficial for your readers even if they are going to your competitors’ websites. But if someone is sandwiching high quality comments with spammy links, you will have to drop the hammer on them.
5. robotic language: the fastest way to get banned on my sites is using a robot to leave a comment. Robots are not smart enough to come up with new things to say. If you watch your comments long enough, you can almost tell which commenters are web-bots and which ones are not.
6. unrelated comment or question: a lot of spammers are sophisticated enough to not make the above mistakes. Some spammers do make the mistake of posting their comments to the wrong pages on your site. It is not that hard to determine which comments are completely unrelated to your blog posts. In most cases, I remove these types of comments just to make sure these folks don’t get over my “auto-approval” threshold for comments.
7. thank you comments: this is very similar to the 3rd point in this list. In the past few months, I must have gotten thousands of comments thanking me about what a good job I am doing on this site. The trouble is many of them look identical. If these were real people, they would not use the exact same paragraphs on my sites. You have probably seen these types of comments too. While you don’t want to be rude, you are probably better off removing these bots from your community.

Spam is not fun to deal with. Anti-spam plugins and the above tactics can help you filter out as many spammy comments as possible and keep your community clean for longer.

WordPress is a wonderful platform to start and built a blog upon. The software is free and very powerful. And you do have a community of WordPress developers and fans who are writing add-ons and enhancements for the platform for everyone else to use. Like most other popular platforms, WordPress is not immune to hack attacks and spam comments. Fighting spam on your blog is not exactly the best way to spend your time. That’s why you should enhance your blog’s functionality to make sure you are not a victim of a spam attack.

There are many plug-ins to choose from. But you can’t have them all. You want to make sure you install plug-ins that add some tangible value. And make sure you know what you are downloading. The last thing you want is someone using the software you have installed to take control of your blog.

Here are the anti-spam WordPress plug-ins that I use on my blogs:

Invisible Defender: Spambots are very nasty. These bots can create fake accounts and post comments. Invisible Defender makes it easy to protect your blog against those kinds of attacks. It’s not foolproof, but it’s pretty good.

WordPress Cleanup: WordPress Cleanup cleans up your WordPress database from spam comments and data that you don’t use on a regular basis.

WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam: it’s not hard to imagine spammers upping their game to try and get around anti-spam software that bloggers are using to protect themselves. WP-SpamFree Anti-Spam is a cool plug-in that makes it easy to thwart spammers and get rid of junk comments and spammy track-backs. And you don’t have to subject your users to Captcha if you don’t want to.

Captcha The Dog: adding Captcha makes it inconvenient for your readers to comment on your posts. There is no question about it. But sometimes it’s necessary to protect the blog you have worked so hard to build with Captcha. Captcha is not foolproof but is pretty good.

WordPress Exploit Scanner: WordPress Exploit Scanner goes through your WordPress database and looks for vulnerabilities. You are not necessarily going to see a big red sign on your blog when it’s hacked. That’s why you need to use plugins such as this one to find out if there is a problem with the way your DB is set up and what you can do to protect your blog against further attacks.

There you have it. There are a few other plug-ins that you can use to protect your blog. Perhaps, it’s better to keep an open eye and be on the top of the latest security issues with WordPress. No security system is 100% proof but by using a few or all of the above solutions, you can make it hard for spammers to penetrate your blog’ defense. This is not a problem that will go away anytime soon, so the sooner you get started with these plug-ins, the better off your blog will be.