This could make your blog faster and limit spam!
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
Just wanted to give you a quick tip on adding a little bit more speed to your blog as well as another way to fight the rampant spam that you might be experiencing.
In your Discussion Settings make sure that you un-check the first two options and it will increase the speed of your posting and then limit the opportunities for spammers to link your site.
You might be thinking why I’m not a fan of pingbacks/trackbacks and here’s why: It doesn’t really interest me to show explicitly where I’m being linked to since all it does is elongate the comment area and no one really clicks through to those pingbacks.
In addition, I get way too much spam through backlinks and I’m not a fan of that either (or moderating them)!
I really want to highlight the community interaction and comments and I always encourage the commenters to link to their posts that might mention my post in the comments. It’s just one more way I’m trying to “up” the level of community engagement while minimizing the time that I manage and curate my blog.
Love to hear your thoughts!
Of course, you can check all the other optimal WordPress Settings in this post here!
[This post is part of the Ultimate Guide to Launching a WordPress-Powered Blog series.]
Good point. I like.
Changed my settings, thank you.
good for you!
Thanks for the advice!
sure thing dylan!
agreed. Never thought about this. Thanks John!
rock on!
I don’t know. I might disagree on this one…at least for us newbie, no-name bloggers who don’t have the problem of spam.
On my blogs, a comment is a comment which I fought hard for, no matter how it comes in. Sure, I don’t want spam, and don’t allow it, but I can’t think of the last time I had a spam trackback.
but you consider a trackback a “comment”?
Not really. But it does get counted in my comment count, and it shows me that others are reading what I write and like it enough to tell their blog readers about it.
Also, I have noticed that many bloggers prefer to write about blogs that allow trackbacks rather than those blogs that do not.
For example, I love this blog. I’ve been reading for a few months. But I have only talked about it once on my blog. Why? Because (selfishly) there is no benefit for me to do so. If you allowed trackbacks, however, you would probably get a mention every week.
you know, i recently turned this back off… so i had them for a long time. i had nearly 1,000 of them… so you weren’t blogging about TentBlogger anyways!
;(
sad.
I’m wondering what do you mean by “it will increase the speed of your posting”?
because the fact that you’re telling the system to “ping” other blogs mentioned in your links which can take some time. that’s why you get trackbacks on your own blog the instantly you publish a new post when you interlink them.
it’s a small jump but I’m all about speed for all things!
Love your advice….. Thanks so much… Doing that today.
cool! sure thing keiki!
I hate trackbacks epically on blogs where trackbacks are on top of comments and i have to scroll through a bunch of links i don’t want to read to comment.
seriously. isn’t that a pain?
This a great tid bit of advice. Although I am relatively new the blogging community, I realize Spam is a real issue. The advice you provide is quick and easy for anyone to do. Thanks
ah, man, thanks! i try to keep it super easy!
This is such a simple solution! Almost a little too simple
Since I started my newest site back in Feb ’11 it’s been getting hit with about 30-50 spam comments and trackbacks everyday. Reading through these everyday is a real drag as 98% of these are spam. But I read through them in hopes that a real comment is mixed in, the whole time thinking…There must be a better way!
Any help you could throw my way is greatly appreciated.
Great looking blog you got here!
thanks jason!
Sorry forgot to ask my question!
How did you set up your comments so that the fist one must be verified by email? Are you using a WP Plugin and if so which one?
Thanks
that’s easy. here. for free:
http://tentblogger.com/comment-workflow/
Thanks for the blog series, it has really helped me understand how to improve!
Keep it up!
you too! keep rocking it!