Trackback spam prevention

[DavidC]

What, please, is the Trackback spam - and how do I prevent it, please?

Thanks.

3 conversations

[Imperfect Christians] [Requires review] New trackback made to What God Did & Why - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study "how to start home care business Montana" <admin@imperfectchristians.net> Reply-To: "how to start home care business Montana" <email@sun2save.com> X-Mailer: Serendipity/2.5.0 X-Engine: PHP/8.2.18 Message-ID: <a138d58b47d976b26ee034fcca82683f@imperfectchristians.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Auto-Submitted: auto-generated Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A new trackback has been made to your blog-entry entitled "What God Did & W= hy - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study".=0A=0ARequires review: Yes (IP= validation: startahomecarebusinessinmontana.net [66.198.240.25] !=3D sende= r ip [196.240.173.163, ua=3D"PHP/5.2.62"])=0ALink to entry: https://…
[Imperfect Christians] [Requires review] New trackback made to What God Did & Why - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study "how to start home care business Nebraska" <admin@imperfectchristians.net> Reply-To: "how to start home care business Nebraska" <email@sun2save.com> X-Mailer: Serendipity/2.5.0 X-Engine: PHP/8.2.18 Message-ID: <e4b4349e3c87c24ca23150ec6afe669d@imperfectchristians.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Auto-Submitted: auto-generated Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A new trackback has been made to your blog-entry entitled "What God Did & W= hy - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study".=0A=0ARequires review: Yes (IP= validation: startahomecarebusinessinnebraska.net [66.198.240.25] !=3D send= er ip [45.95.117.243, ua=3D"PHP/5.2.46"])=0ALink to entry: https://i…
[Imperfect Christians] [Requires review] New trackback made to What God Did & Why - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study "how to start home care business Mississippi" <admin@imperfectchristians.net> Reply-To: "how to start home care business Mississippi" <email@sun2save.com> X-Mailer: Serendipity/2.5.0 X-Engine: PHP/8.2.18 Message-ID: <ac090803b969ee9ed0cea70e8465f1d4@imperfectchristians.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Precedence: bulk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Auto-Submitted: auto-generated Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

A new trackback has been made to your blog-entry entitled "What God Did & W= hy - (Week 2 of 2) Small Group - Word Study".=0A=0ARequires review: Yes (IP= validation: startahomecarebusinessinmississippi.net [66.198.240.25] !=3D s= ender ip [5.157.20.112, ua=3D"PHP/5.3.33"])=0ALink to entry: https:/…

These messages take up 8.3 KB.

[onli]

Those trackbacks were already sent to moderation because the IP validation failed. You could make this more aggressive and block them completely, it's an option in the spamblock settings. This will however also likely block valid trackbacks, but if you get a lot of spam right now that might be worth it.

[DavidC]

From what I'm reading about Trackbacks - it would seem best to just disable them for now.

I'm not aware of one to which I'd immediately choose to 'link'.

Am I understanding Trackbacks correctly, please?

[onli]

I wrote that confusingly. With "block them completely" I only meant "reject them when the IP validation check fails". That's an option under "Spam Protector" -> "Trackback section" -> "Trackback/Pingback: ip validation" -> reject.

Alternatively, activating Akismet should also help with the trackback spam, and might have less false positives.

To really deactivate them completely, "How to treat comments made via APIs" set to "reject" in the spam protector settings should have that effect.

I'm not aware of one to which I'd immediately choose to 'link'.

Am I understanding Trackbacks correctly, please?

Trackbacks and pingbacks are some data package that gets send from your blog to other blogs when you link an article there, or to your blog when another blog links your article. It's a mechanism to know about those links, and then that information gets shown below the article. They are probably less popular now for regular blogs, but they are a thing in the indieweb (called webmentions there, same thing called differently and with some added fluff).

[DavidC]

To really deactivate them completely, "How to treat comments made via APIs" set to "reject" in the spam protector settings should have that effect.

Done.

I'll report back if we see any more of them.

Thanks.

[onelove]

Thank you