MT-Blacklist to the Rescue

The amount of annoying comment spam that's appearing in blog posts has been getting out of hand lately. I was tired of clearing it out by and and was getting the point where I was going to disable comments on posts. 

Instead I installed MT-Blacklist, Jay Allen's free Movable Type plug-in that helps eliminate comment and trackback spam.  So far, it's working great.

Comment spam is all about getting getting the URL for a questionable site into as many sites as possible so that search engines that index sites will give that URL more prominence.  Since spammers constantly forge new identities and IP addresses, MT-Blacklist lets you block any comments that include links to common spam URLs.  You can download a regularly updated master list of spam URLs and also add your own at any time.  I's not fool-proof protection and, like an anti-virus program, you have to regulary update your master list, but, for me, it's turned an intolerable spam situation into a very manageable one.