Comments on: Which program has better spam protection: Gmail or WordPress?

By: Gary King

Gary King — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:20:41 +0000

David, it’s a conspiracy!

By: David

David — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:02:57 +0000

Hey, the smiley face is gone now…

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:38:34 +0000

David, the smiley face spies on you.

By: David

David — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 21:43:19 +0000

Sure you don’t hate Microsoft I totally believe you.

That’s abuse of the word beta.

I just noticed that you’ve got a small smiley face at the bottom of your pages.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:37:34 +0000

Yeah, Gmail rocks especially when redirecting all your other POP3 accounts to it. Since you can label incoming e-mails you have the option to keep things separate, and as a bonus, if your POP3 provider doesn’t implement effective spam protection, Gmail will do it for you

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:32:17 +0000

Paul, very cool! I’ll check it out.

By: Paul Butler

Paul Butler — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:26:24 +0000

I created my own anti-spam plugin that has protected my blog remarkably well. I get in the range of 10 to 30 spam comments per day, all of which are deleted by the plugin. The result is that I don't have to spend any time maintaining my blog until I feel like posting. It works like a CAPTCHA, but the user doesn't even know it is there.

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:24:25 +0000

Peter, very true. No doubt about that. When I first signed up, I was skeptical about how much spam I would get. As of now, I’ve redirected ALL my email (I’ve got multiple email addresses) to that one Gmail inbox.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 17:12:47 +0000

Hmm, I guess it would have to do with what your Gmail username is. Since spammer scripts often send e-mail to random usernames in the hope of getting a valid e-mail address, I’m guessing that this the difference. “Gary” and “King” are probably much more common than “Peter” and “Chng”.

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 08:51:16 +0000

Peter, I don’t have my email listed on my site as well. I use Gmail when I sign up for services because of the fact that you pointed out, in that it protects my inbox from spam VERY well. So, your reason seems counter-intuitive to me

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 04:16:49 +0000

I’ve had my Gmail address for over three years, so I still find that it’s pretty good that I don’t get a lot spam in it. Even the number of spam that Gmail *does* catch is negligible. But, like I said before, visibility does matter. I rarely use the address to sign up for anything, and only have it associated with services that I consider to be *essential*.

However, with a website/blog, things are always visible. Heck, that’s the goal – for the thing to be visible. It’s almost guaranteed that if you start a blog, no matter how popular it actually is, that spambots will find it.

I’m sure if I put a mailto: link on my website with my e-mail address the amount of spam would be different.

By: Gary King

Gary King — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 04:10:01 +0000

David, I’ve never said I hated Microsoft. I use Windows XP constantly (I have no need to upgrade to Vista – yet). Anyways, you’ll soon learn that a large majority of my readers use Macs more than Windows, anyhow

As for Gmail being in beta, it’s so that you can’t complain about any issues since they can then claim that it’s because it’s in beta.

Peter, spam companies sell the email addresses as well, so it would probably spread pretty quickly as well.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:35:08 +0000

Well, I’m also biased towards Google, so I tend to think Google’s spam filtering is pretty good. I rarely get a spam e-mail that gets into my inbox with Gmail.

However, it really depends on how popular you are with the spammers. Like you, I noticed in the past month or so that Akismet has missed quite a few comments that were obviously spam. And, like you, I dutifully marked these as spam to help out Akismet. (I don’t get nearly as much comment spam as you though, since I don’t get as much traffic – just under 4000 spam comments per month over the past year)

But I think I just get more spam through my blog than through Gmail because it’s more visible to the spammers. I don’t really post my Gmail around the web that much.

One thing for sure: Gmail does filter much better than Hotmail/WLM.

By: David

David — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 03:09:21 +0000

“So, which program is better? I get the feeling that I’ve got more WordPress spam slipping through the filters than spam email.”

I think you’re just biased towards Google due to your hatred of Microsoft.

Why is Gmail still beta?