This post is not really about the Aurora Borealis. It’s more of a test post to see how many spam comments will come my way once I post. For fun I am also posting a photo of a recent aurora event in on the shores of Lake Huron.
In the past year, many bogus comments plagued my site. I am not sure what to expect today, but please be aware of this and don’t click on any suspicious profiles. I will delete and block all of the suspicious comments and let you all know if my concerns were justified.
Once I deal with the issue (and I hope there is nothing to deal with), I will have a heck of a lot of catching up to do!
The spam issue is really annoying, because I found my click totals fall dramatically when WordPress put some sort of spam filter that worked, but almost too well! Nice pic!
Thanks, John! Yeah, I had a lot of spam in the “contact us”, but started getting these annoying fake comments on old posts. So far, it seems okay!
Good idea. We bought a 25’C class in June and have returned to RVing after a 15 year drought. We enjoy your ramblings and might even try a few of your tours next year.
Great to have you here! We just got back from a wonderful trip to the Upper Peninsula. I am hoping to share it soon.
So looking forward to you catching up. Beautiful Aurora. I saw it too. On the shores of Lake Ontario.
No spam here. And hope you don’t get any. Great to see a post from you. 💕
Thanks, Alegria! The Aurora was magical, and so far no spam in sight 🙂
That’s great to hear Margie!
Yeah, spam is so annoying and I must admit haven’t had much of a problem lately. When I started I got a lot and I was so innocent I thought it was magic getting 1000 views a day and then being trolled by an exwife so I cancelled it and went from Blogger to Facebook but they were linked so it made no difference so I cancelled that one and used a fictitious name and started again.
But it will be great to start reading more posts from you when begin again.
As for the Aurora, Ballarat is too far away from the South Pole for us to see our Aurora Australis. It’s something I’ll have to cross off my list .
Spammers are the worst. Well, almost. Auroras are actually closer to magic than anything else 🙂 I hope you get to see Aurora Australis one day!
Beautiful picture.
Thank you!
It’s so nice to hear from you. It’s been a while. I hope all is well with you and yours.
It has been a while! We are all well and I hope all is well with all of you!
Happy new year to you! Life in the lower 48 is chaotic to say the least. We may need a safe haven soon.
Thank you! I hope you are all okay…you can always crash here 🙂
I am looking forward to all your news.
Working on it 🙂
Spam comments are so annoying; I get a lot of them whenever I post, and I’ve had to manually filter and delete them. My WordPress Comments tab catches a few of the spam comments, but not nearly enough. Best of luck to you, and I hope to read more from you soon! (PS I missed the Northern Lights recently, but lovely photo)!
None of the comments are being intercepted. Manually mark them as spam, but none seem to go there voluntarily. So far it seems good though.
Hello you 2 random wanderers, we were begin to wonder where you had gone to. It has been a long time, so we are glad to see your post. I thought we were about to hear stories re: that cute colonial town just north of “The Big Smoke” Turns out it’s all about another celestial phenomenon. Carry on we’re all ears. <3 Tom and Dee at Rural Rootz Nature Reserve.
Hi Tom and Dee, we just came back from a beautiful trip to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. We are hoping to share it all soon. Hope all is well with you two!
I find spam goes in fits and starts, several days with very little and then the masses descend! Quite a few of them are attached to recent posts but the great majority lock on to two posts from five years ago. WP’s spam filter catches them – if it didn’t the figures for those two posts would be off the scale!
I had the same thing with two older post that also happen to be the most viewed ones by far. I closed comments for those posts because it was out of hand. It helped, but now I get most of the comments on the last post I made. I don’t think any of them are being caught by the spam filter, but I haven’t looked closely to verify. I also had a lot of new followers, some of which may not be legit, so I am waiting to see if anything sinister will take place 🙂
Hope you get it worked out
Thanks, Don!
Beautiful pic. I’ve noticed I have a lot less comments in my spam folder. I think WP tightened up. I’ll be interested to hear how your little experiment went.
Thanks, Ingrid! That is encouraging to hear and I hope that is the case. I will definitely let everyone know.
She’s back! Nice to see you again, Margie, even if it is just a test spam post. No spam from Pete.
Haha, thanks Pete!
Great to see a post from you again! I look forward to hearing about your trip to the UP.
Thanks, Julia! I will work on it!
Good luck!
Thank you!
I had a batch of spam comments for a while and they eventually gave up when I deleted them. Set your comments to moderate and you can choose who you let comment on your site. I had to do this when a bully tried to take me on. He gave up in time too. Nice to hear from you by the way. Still waiting to se the aurora out here. Have a good weekend. Allan
Thanks, Allan. I have it set on moderation when there is a comment with a link and this seems to catch many of the more sinister ones. I am hoping not to have to resort to moderating comments. The Northern Lights were pretty active this year, I hope you get to see it one day.
So sorry to hear you’re dealing with this!
Thanks, June!
Hi, I also have had some issues but with bogus subscribers. I emailed MailPoet and they worked with me to fix the issue. Good luck with your issue.
Karen
Thanks, Karen. Yes, it is both spam comments and potentially bogus subscribers. There were a few that were obviously bogus, but I am not sure about the rest. I am waiting for the big attack from the potentially bogus subscribers, but it seems okay so far!
Margie, it’s so nice to see a post from you! And such a lovely one too. It’s wild to think how much opportunities we had in the recent while to catch the Northern Lights.
Good luck wedding through the spam and look forward to catching up on your catch up posts!
So far so good! I asm starting to feel somewhat empowered by the lack of spam. Now if the universe behaves I will post some more soon 🙂
How frustrating—I hope you solve the problem—perhaps even contact WordPress
Thank you. I will certainly do this if it seems to be an issue!
Very frustrating!
I also had the opposite problem, when quite a few legit comments ended in the spam box. After discover it, I’ve learned to check this box every now and then, and “rescue” legit ones, so I can respond to them. 🙂
Weirdly, I have no comments in the spam folder unless I put them there. So far, I only had one spam comments, so I am feeling positive about this little experiment 🙂
Beautiful indeed. Lucky you! Cheers, Muriel
Thanks, Muriel!
Mine did that for ages but seems to have sorted itself out now.
Hoping it will get sorted out here as well!
Beautiful capture of the northern lights and how amazing that you were able to see them from Lake Huron! Sorry to hear that you’ve been having issues with sketchy comments. I can imagine how annoying it is to filter every comment manually. Looking forward to hearing what you’ve been up to. It’s been awhile!! Hope all is well.
Hello. During their recent expansive displays, I was hoping that the Northern Lights would be visible in my part of Pennsylvania. But it was not to be. Neil S.
Hi Neil. It was a good year so far so you may get a chance still!