Dealing with spam

I'm wondering how you all deal with spam on your blogs. I have tried to simplify the comments process here by taking off word verification. Over the months since I did that, I've had thousands of spam comments. I deleted almost a 1000 spam comments last week (a couple of days worth) and then waited to see how many more came in. In 14 minutes I got 54 spam comments. I then put word verification back on again and have had two since. So word verification has to stay even though I know it makes it difficult if you're commenting from an iPad or phone.

Bloggers ability to pick up spam and put it straight into the spam folder is excellent, but there's so much of it, just getting rid of it every few days takes time because I can only delete 100 at a time.

There is also a problem some readers have reported about comments disappearing. Does that happen on your blog too? Do you know why? I've written to Google about this but haven't had a reply. I doubt I'll get one now. If you're a new reader here, it is much easier to comment if you have a Google ID. It's the same one you get if you sign up for any of the Google accounts - gmail, Reader, Feedburner etc., or you can use your ID from Wordpress, Livejournal, Typepad, Aim, your name and url or as anonymous.  You just make your selection from the comments section. Once you choose an ID, it remembers it, so you'll probably only have to do that once.

I was going to stop the anonymous comments too because when I get hate-filled comments, they're always anonymous. Funny that. You would think that if you felt so strongly about something that you'd step up and own your comments, but there are a lot of cowards hiding on the internet. However, I know some people who comment can only comment as anonymous so I'm leaving that on. I'm not sure why that is but a few readers have told me that is their experience. 

I am so grateful for comment moderation. Do you use it? I know very many of my regular readers by name but those who are new to me with a name I don't recognise, I am now checking them out before I publish their comment. Reinstating the word verification has stopped hundreds of spam comments but some human spammers are now creating a ID, then they make a comment that is related to the post so it looks genuine. I've just realised though that many of these are fake and have a link to a business or website that none of us want to see, or even know about. So I've been going through the old comments and deleting those. If you find one, can you drop me an email with the link to the page please. Thank you.

And that's another way spam comes in - emails. They probably don't think of themselves as spammers but I get a lot of emails from advertising agencies and PR firms asking to advertise on my blog. I got one this week inviting me for cocktails at a fashion extravaganza! Do they not read my posts? Anyhow, if you work for one of these places, please take me off your mailing list because I will never reply to your emails. I will only ever recommend products that I use myself, I know fit in to the life we're all trying to live or for some small home businesses through my sponsor buttons.

Surely it's not only me who has a big problem with spam. If you do I'd love to know how you deal with it.