Spam Problems

Almost every single blog out there will be have at least a ton of spam comments on it. Spam has become very difficult to restrict in any type of website or blog. Using a spam blocker like Akismet or Bad Behavior can help you to manage automated spam. However, of late, spammers visit your website and advertise their products or sites which have no value whatsoever.

Also, spam directed toward your blog or site may be originating from specific countries. You can find this by keeping track of the IPs that leave spam comments or messages on your site. If you want to block an IP, you can do it easily. However, spammers may simply use another IP address to send their spam. Sometimes, it becomes essential to block an entire country or range of IPs in order to block the spam.

Blocking with .htaccess

The .htaccess or hypertext access file is one that can be used for changing access permissions to any folder or subdomain on your site. If the .htaccess file is present on your hosting account by default, then all you need to do is edit it. If not you need to create and upload one.

Creating a .htaccess file

• Create a text file on your PC and name it htaccess.txt (or anything else)
• Upload it to the root of your hosting account. In most cases, put it in the folder which has the folders by the name of public_html, private_html etc. If you do not know the root folder, simply ask your host.
• Then using a FTP client or the File Manager of your host, rename the file to .htaccess. Ensure that the file name is dot htaccess (don’t forget the dot)
• You cannot create the file with the name .htaccess in Windows and hence you need to follow this procedure

Banning Countrywide Visitors

• Visit Block a Country
• Select the Country that you want to ban
• Get the .htaccess details for that country
• Copy it and paste it in your .htaccess file
• Now, all visitors from the country will not be allowed to enter the site

Disadvantages of Blocking

The main demerit would be missing out of visitors from that country. However, these countries would probably not fetch you much traffic anyway. The site basically generates a list of IPs specific to that particular country. Also, spammers may use proxies from another country to over ride your protection. But, you can atleast discourage most spammers from your site.

This needs to be done only in extreme cases of spam problems. In case, you have a couple of spam from a country and you ban the country, then you seriously will be having problems in getting visitors to your site.

Do tell me if you’ve ever had the need to do so for your site or blog. Consider sharing this if you find it useful and thanks for reading!

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