How’s that for a title? It’s true; I’m done; and now I’m going to explain why in what might be the shortest article I’ve written since 2008.
Blocked; no more… over it!
I hate spam passionately; I know I’m not the only one. I’ve used lots of tools over the years, trying to eradicate spam, but this blog’s been around a long time, and though it’s not regular visitor positive as it once was, it’s very popular to spammers and scammers.
The thing is, I look at all the stuff that gets through, even though the plugins I use (one of them I’m paying for) do a pretty good job in general terms. What I’m seeing, and the numbers don’t lie, is that 99.97% of all the spam that comes is via a Gmail account, and 99.99% that gets through looking legitimate (at least to the spam filters; if only those things could read…) are Gmail submissions.
Heck, even half the people whose comments I trust are using Gmail. I actually have 2 Gmail accounts, one created when I got my first smartphone (which I talked about in 2012), the other when I created a 2nd YouTube channel (it was mandatory at the time), both of which I’ve never used (until last Thursday, when I was running tests on how to block Gmail).
The problem is that Google allows people to not only create an account without any bonafides, but allows people to create as many of them as they want. They don’t care as long as the person changes the first name, either a “regular” or business name. I talked about that in an article on why many sites believe Gmail is spam, if you want to see point #8.
Google, being the biggest dog, has crushed Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL in becoming the most dominant email company in the world… which means they’re also the spammiest (not a word, but it should be). Well, I’ve had it; I’m tired of dealing with it. So, from this point on, unless somehow I’m allowed to whitelist the people I know and trust, all gmail messages will immediately go to trash (unless you do something that automatically blocks you, which one of my spam filters looks for). That means they’re not deleted; I can still see them and pull out the good ones, though it’ll probably be rare.
It also means I won’t wake up anymore and see email saying I either have to approve a comment that went into moderation or messages that got through that shouldn’t have. If you’re legit, know that I check this blog multiple times a day, so unless you’ve been bounced for a violation of a spam filter, I’ll eventually see your message and approve it.
That’s it; that’s the entire article… in less than 500 words. I wonder if it’ll end up getting the most comments; we’ll see.
Wow! Congratulations. Less than 500 words. Great achievement Mitch.
I have only two email addresses, one for my regular emails which is a gmail account and the other for my blog. I don’t know if the former causes you problems but, I assure you that I am not a spammer.
All the best for the number of comments.
Thanks Rummuser lol Yours is the first & only comment at this point, so we’ll see how it goes. It moved you to spam, which isn’t where it was previously going, but at least it’s not deleting it so that’s a step forward. So far I haven’t received a single email showing me that a spammer actually made it into normal comments; I consider that a win so far.
Hi Mitch
I think that this is the REAL Problem:
Good article. I can follow this myself and can advise my colegue also to create better strategy to solve this spam mail
Well, since you sent this using gmail, it’s kind of a contradiction for your business goals. For marketing purposes (and blog commenting in general), it’s better to use your business domain to help with branding your business. Since your comment was cogent, I saved it from being deleted and brought it here so I could comment on it. Let’s see what you end up doing with your issues.
I certainly understand your decision. Mine was even easier: I turned off commenting on my blog. Best time-saving hack ever!!
Enjoy your freedom and serenity.
Cheers,
Mitch
LOL! Definitely not my style, but I understand. I can’t talk about blogs that don’t accept comments and not accept comments. š
Wait, are you saying you were ONLY blocking mine, before? LOL
Nope. I have no idea why yours was being blocked before… actually, I do now. It’s that period after your first name; hadn’t noticed that previously. Didn’t think about it until Rasheed’s comment got blocked, and I remembered I had a blocked list I hadn’t made any changes to that automatically blocks emails with a period in the name.
Well, Mitch, my only emails are Google and I have them for both personal and my blogs. I donāt have a business anymore. I will continue to comment and hope you see them. If not, I guess thermās the breaks.
By the way, I just today saw your comment that you couldnāt make on one of my posts over a week ago. I donāt know how it got lost in my email but Iām sorry. And Iām sorry you couldnāt get it to register. I am having periodic problems with my blog but I am not savvy enough to fix them and not motivated enough to change demands. I do get occasional comments so it evidently isnāt an overarching issue. I hope you try again. I always like hearing from you. Peran this is probably bad form discussing my blog on your blog. Sorry.
At least yours ended up in the trash bin so I could pull it out and make it active again. That seems to be the case for most of the gmail addresses coming through, even the stuff that’s obvious spam. At least it’s doing what I want it to do; whew!
It’s fine talking about your blog on mine, since it was a missed conversation between us. Course, at this stage I don’t remember which post I commented on since you didn’t respond to it via email… unless you did & I didn’t get it lol
oh, right. Duh!
LOL!
Well I suppose I’ll find out if I am included in the block. š
I understand it though, spam is a pain-in-the-butt for certain. I don’t want to jinx anything, but my spam filters have been pretty solid for a while now though my traffic is down significantly so that may be a huge part of it,
Josh, you went into the trash bin, but that works well for me. I’m going to try adding you to the white list, but it doesn’t seem to work for everyone, and I have no idea why. Still, at least you know I’m getting the comments and moving them to the proper place.
I have been stuck in worse places. š
Iāve always wondered about this ā so much I donāt know.
I hope you are receiving my newsletter. I use MailChimp to send it, but the āfromā is my Gmail address. Sigh.
I receive gmail on my email accounts… just not on this blog or my business blog… and not on my membership site once I get it set up. You noticed that I had to pull you out of the trash bin before it would show here.