Why I Dished the Growmap Anti SpamBot Plugin (G.A.S.P.) – But Still Searching!

If your blog is built on the WordPress blogging platform and if you have the Commentluv plugin installed then one of the biggest challenges you will need to overcome is the problem of spam comments. Though the Commentluv plugin is great when it comes to audience engagement and interactions, this problem of spam comments really takes most of the benefits out.

But wonderfully there are many anti-spam plugins in the market that are great in helping to fight this menace. One of such plugin that many bloggers have been using with great results is the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (G.A.S.P.). I started using this plugin sometime last year when the Web Income Journal became a target for comment spammers. I must confess that since then the plugin has proved a worthy companion for the blog.

Unfortunately, for some months now I observed a growing incident of spam comments across all my blogs on which I use this plugin. At first, I thought these spam comments were coming from human visitors who first load the page before adding their spam comments. To me this was not really a big problem.

But how wrong I was!

When I later discovered that the rate of spam comments started growing beyond what I could regard as normal any more, I had to do a research online. From my research I discovered that many bloggers were having this same problem. You may want to see some graphics from the blog and a few other of my blog on which G.A.S.P. couldn’t fend off the spammers again.

First, this one is from this blog. This is just a couple of days spam count:

And then this one is from another of my blog. I rarely update this blog and so this graphic represents about a week of spam comments that G.A.S.P. let through!

Searching for an Alternative Comment Spam Plugin

Looking for an alternative was not an easy task as I did not want an anti-spam plugin that require commenters to either fill in a captcha or answer some questions! Personally, I do not fancy such solutions. To me, they are not only obstructive but not user-friendly too.

However, it turned out that there are really no very many anti spam wordpress plugins that do not use a captcha! I must say that right now, I’m still searching for the right plugin. But for now, I’m testing a few ones hoping to settle for the right one.

Let me at this junction apologize to our dear friends and supporters because in the past week when I couldn’t get a plugin that would do what I wanted (and since I have become fed up with G.A.S.P) I had to install the Captcha Bank plugin. I know most of you did not find this funny as you had to go through the rigors of trying to decipher the captcha before posting your comments.

Please accept my apologies!

Any way, I must say Captcha Bank did a good work in keeping the spam comments away in the past few days. However, I was not satisfied because of the captcha and so, right now I’m testing Spam Hammer which promises to do away with the spam comments without any fuss – no moderation, no captchas, no puzzles, no false positives!

I’ve just installed this plugin and I do hope it will perform what it has promised.

My Take on G.A.S.P.!

So, for now I must say Growmap Anti SpamBot Plugin (G.A.S.P.) has lost its bite. If what I have seen from other blogs is anything to go by, it is clear that someone has been able to breach the plugins defenses and right now the spam bots have free access without any hindrance.

I must say, I’ve always updated my plugins it is not about not using the latest version. Andy Bailey did a good work with G.A.S.P. but if it must sustain the good records it has held over the years, he must do something about it.

Also, I’m quite aware that there is a premium version of the plugin, but is a fact that if the free version cannot impress the user there will never be any incentive to upgrade to the premium version.

Feel free to air your views on this post. I will be at hand to reply you!