Yesterday, the Blog Fairy came and wiped both Nova and Kia's sites clear of about 12,000 spam comments. And this was with MT-Blacklist installed.

I think by now, we all know that MT-powered blogs and spam comments go together like peanut butter and jelly. Chances are if you run one, you're going to get spammed. Some folks have made the upgrade to MT 3.1 and Typekey, but who wants to go through all that signing in and leaving a comments and all that stuff? I sign in to my e-mail and for secure financial sites. Now I've got another username/password combo to remember? Sheesh….

Of course, there are a couple of easy steps one can take to help curb or even eliminate the spam comments and keep your blog bug-free. Check it.

1. Install MT-Blacklist and keep the Blacklist fresh. The installation right out of the box may not contain all the latest URLs and catch-words. When I ran this site on MT, I made sure to update the blacklist at least once a week. The master blacklist is always kept current here, or you can subscribe to its RSS feeds.
2. Install MT-Close. Running this script will close all comments (and trackbacks, if you wish) from any time duration you specify (in days). Once the comments are closed, just rebuild the site in MT and you're good to go. Of course, if you forget, just set a cron job for it (for those of you more technically inclined). Also, make sure your site is running on MySQL for your MT database, not Berkeley DB. Wait a minute…you're still using Berkeley DB? Then migrate, bitch!

Blogspam also lists some other sites and ways to curb or eliminate spam from your site. Then again, if you use DreamHost for your site, then you could just install Wordpress with one click. It's not a complete solution, but when I switched over to WP, my spam comments completely stopped.

*ahem*

As you were.