Identifying Comment Spammers

Today I've been having a closer look at the Apache log files to try and sort out a problem we've been having with comment spam. It was surprisingly easy to find the log entries for comment spam. The pattern is basically:

• A POST without a Referer header or preceding GET, and/or
• The text 'User-Agent' in the User-Agent identifier

I was surprised that the spammer(s) made the mistake of beginning their fake User-Agent identifier with the words 'User-Agent'. That made it very simple for me to find the relevant log entries.

Thanks

About Roger Keays

Roger Keays is an artist, an engineer, and a student of life. He has no fixed address and has left footprints on 40-something different countries around the world. Roger is addicted to surfing. His other interests are music, psychology, languages, the proper use of semicolons, and finding good food.