Is Your Blog Easy to Love?
I'm talking about comment love, of course.
I'll keep this short and sweet. There are many, many blogs out there that people can visit, but they choose yours. Be good to them, yes?
In the past, this meant slowing things down for them and yourself. You enabled Blogger's word verification feature (nonsense captcha word) and maybe approved comments by hand, just in case. It was a small price to pay to keep that blubbery wave of ads from targeting your readers in the comment box, right?
Well, guess what? The Blogger Spam Filter changes all of that! It does all the heavy lifting for you, vetting your comments and sorting out the junk!
We removed the captcha from our comments here at The Bookshelf Muse about a month ago to test how well this feature culled the spam. Day after day, the filter snagged questionable comments and successfully labelled them spam. All we do now is empty the filter once in a while, just like an email junk box.
Three words, people: BETTER THAN BACON. No more messing around with the nonsense word! No more approving comments unless you want to! Readers can comment, and then move on.
So please, spread the word about this feature. Word verification is a time suck. Think about it: how many blogs do you visit a day? A week? That's a lot of captchas to type out. If you use Blogger, give your readers back their time and remove word verification.
It seems like a small thing, but trust me, it's one of those little things that mean a lot. Your readers will appreciate it!
71 comments:
So true. I still see a lot of blogger blogs with the word verification, so thanks for posting this.
YEAH! I removed mine not too long ago.
Very true! Up with the Spam Filter, down with word verification!
Long live the Queen!
Sorry, this comment was starting to feel revolutionary ... Don't SPAM me, bro!
:-)
I Removed mine after reading some blogging tips. Never had trouble with spam since ;)
Glad to hear you guys have removed it. I still have to fill in the captcha at so many blog I figured a public service announcement was needed, lol.
*chants*
"Up with the Spam Filter, down with word verification!"
LOL
Thanks for posting about this. I didn't know about the Blogger Spam Filter.
Good to know. I'm not sure if I have this on mine but I definitely am more likely to comment on blogs if it is easier to comment.
I took down the word verification on my blog for a while and spent a lot of time deleting spam. And, really, if I'm reading so many blogs that typing one word to leave a comment takes more than negligible time, then I'm spending too much time on blogs and not enough time writing. Or working.
So true. I removed the WV about a month ago and never had the moderation enabled. Now when a blog has the WV, I inwardly sigh because of the extra seconds.
thank you for spreading the word!! Word verif is old hat and a waste of all our time!
I don't require comments to be approved, but I did use the word verification. Guess what I'm going to change?
Thanks!
Back in the day when captcha was being used to digitize books, it was great. Now, it's only useful if you are writing fantasy and need a name. ;) Thanks for this post.
I hate the captcha! And on some blogs, it takes a while for it to pop up if they have the comments at the bottom of the post as opposed to a separate tab or window.
That irks me.
Your site rocks! I love visiting fellow Blue Boarders' blogs.
Guess who's gonna follow? :D
Better Than Bacon=good enough for me! I'm going to go fix mine! Thanks for the tip! More exclamations just for the heck of it!!
OMG thanks for this, i didnt know it and i hate word verification. Im goint to remove it from my blog and do an entry so more people know about it!
I've noticed the same thing. LOVE the filter!
Virtual hugs for you! Word verification really slows things down.
I didn't realize that was the default! After reading your post, I saw it was enabled for comments on my blog and removed it. Thanks!
Yes please! I hate word verification. Wordpress (which is what my blog is on) has had Akismet for ages. So glad Blogger has a similar feature now so we can say goodbye to captchas for good!
I love, love, love the spam filter on blogger! I've been very impressed with its efficiency.
Great feature. No one likes to crinkle their nose trying to read those blurred letters.... :O)
Oh yeah! I removed mine ages ago, and I think it helps. I really only ever got maybe one spam, which I promptly deleted.
I removed my word verification a while ago and have had no problems with Spam :) all very good!
The Arrival, Book 1 of the BirthRight Trilogy available now
Great reminder! Thanks for posting this.
I'll definitely RT this for you.
I totally agree with you on this! Word verification takes forever. Especially if you keep mistyping letters and have to re-do it two or three times.
I've had it off for ages. I just do moderation on posts older than 3 days, since those are the ones spam usually goes for.
Thanks muses!
I love finding a blog without the verification! I will often write my comment and hit 'publish' and then I'm gone - for some blogs, my comment won't be seen because I missed the verification ...
I chose to remove the word verification not long after I started the blog. I hate them. You're right, they take a lot of time and I read quite a few blogs so I removed from mine what I hate to see in others.
Nice info. :-)
So so true! It's a great feature. I haven't had a problem with spammers at all since. I don't even need to use moderation, either. Love it.
I have been getting a daily dose of spam but I still don't use captchas. So far blogger has caught it all. Take the word verification off, people!
I didn't know! Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it immediately.
I removed my Word Verification just recently, since I read a lot of posts like this one about the new spam filter. I got a few spam comments after--but that was all and they seem to have petered out. :)
I turned off the word verification on my blogs months ago. Though I still have moderation on for old posts, just in case. Blogger is pretty good about catching spam posts, even the ones that try and look like a real comment.
I don't mind the word verification to much while commenting via an actual computer. But when I'm on my phone it's a pain. I have to zoom in, move the screen, then manage to get the cursor into the right spot.
Sweet! I had to go check and sure enuf I still have captcha on for my comments. Thanks for the tip!!
I just wish blogger cooperated with non-blogger commenters. I use my wordpress ID, but if I am not logged in to WP at the time, blogger throws away my comment.
Not too bad if I only left a line or two. When I have left a huge comment though, it is frustrating. I have gotten in the habit of Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C before hitting Post, just in case!
--j--
I had removed my CAPTCHA long time ago. But I do have to set up the spam filter thingy.
Thanks for this post!
Oh yes, I follow a LOT of blogs and it gets really tiring to do all that word verification. Whew. I removed mine a few months ago.
You're right, I really need to share this! It is a great feature and has been a big help. Thanks for jogging my memory. Now to write it on my to-do list...:)
I removed mine recently too, I also don't get why people can't just have the comment moderation if they insist on having control over what gets posted. ;) At least commenters don't need to enter that silly captcha nonsense word.
Thanks for the tip--I'll have to see if I can locate the new Blogger filter. :)
And then there are the blogs that want your name, email address, and website before it will publish a comment. I have no time for such paranoia.
Spam hasn't thankfully been much of a problem for me with wordpress' spam filter. But I can see why it would be annoying to others. However, Chuck has a point, there are some websites that want so much info and take so much time to get through the captcha etc. that they are almost a waste to visit. I don't have a captcha on mine, I rely on the spam filter. At some point in the future when I buy my own site, that might change however. Great article!!
Those captchas suck! I hope lots of people read your blog and agree to give it a try because I feel like I spend half my life trying to decipher captchas.
I've always combated spam by requiring approval on comments on any blog over a day old. I've found most spam happens after you've stopped paying attention to a blog -- the next day or even weeks later. But yeah, I've noticed very little spam lately. It's gone WAYYYY down.
I couldn't agree more.
Wow, I had no clue about this. I'll remove mine, too.
Amen Sister! Ypu're preaching to the choir. I turned my Word Verification off long ago. I have a slower PC and this can really slow me down when leaving comments. Frustrating. Besides, I think i can count on one hand the number of spam messgaes I've received since starting blogging a couple years ago.
Yay! I'm going to try this out! Thank you :)
I'm so glad they did this because I hate word verification. It slows everything down, and when I'm trying to read and post on multiple blogs in the morning, I need every second I can get.
I'm doing it now! I didn't know that was a possibility!! Hope I can get it to work!
Thanks for putting it to the test for us!!!
Well, I'm happy to report that out of the 60 some blogs I've visited in the last 24 hours, maybe three had captchas. Thanks everyone for passing on the word--this really does help us save some time and get to a few more blogs. :)
Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse
Awesome! I got fed up with spammers several months ago. This is good to know.
hmmm. I'll have to remove word verification.
I've never enabled the word verification option, but I do get a lot less spam now, so it must be the spam filter. Gotta love that!
hi miss angela! i didnt ever have that word verification thing and i didnt ever get a spam not even one time. i didnt know bout that filter. how do you empty that filter. i didnt know bout that either.
...hugs from lenny
Thanks. I'll try it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for posting this. Blogger's CAPTCHA is completely annoying and useless. I removed mine years ago, even before the spam filter was added and I don't have problems with spam. Now if we can just get the rest of the world to follow... LoL.
I removed WV months ago, and I've had no problem with spammers. I've retweeted and Facebooked this post--thanks!
Thank you so much for this! I'm off to remove WV right now.
Ugh, so we took ours off yesterday and have had multiple spam comments in the last 12 hours. We're having to put it back up...not sure why no one else has had problems. :(
Brilliant! I'm removing it NOW.
My Blog
I don't have word verification on my comments, do I? (Scratching head)
One thing I've noticed is that when I get spam in my inbox now, it has never made it into my comments. It seems that Blogger now knows when messages are being sent by the hundreds and filter outs out spam all by itself. (Or am I just totally clueless and something else is going on instead?)
Just changed mine!
My word veri is back up. I had an immediate uptick in spam when I took it off.
Mary and Kristi -- Another thought: Maybe the spam comments aren't making it onto the blog itself? I haven't gone into the archives to check because for me they're coming on such old posts. But the thing is, whether they're appearing on the blog or not they're still clogging up my email inbox, and I did not have this problem before taking off the word veri.
I was going to say the same thing--when I removed word verification, spam comments went way up, but they go right to the spam filter, not onto the blog. So, they can spam all they like--it's just wasted effort on their part!
Angela
Thanks for the tip, Angela! I've removed my WV... let's see how it goes.
I'm pro-word verification. It stays.
Thank you. I strongly dislike word verification. It's a turn-off to me most of the time.
By the way, it's been awhile since I've been here, and I must say that I adore the new look :)
Thank you, Angela, for this public service announcement! I sped on over to my blog and removed it. I was getting so frustrated at not being able to SEE those silly words on others' blogs, so not sure why I didn't think to get rid of mine.
PS I found your blog via Donna's this morning. Will be back!
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