I've had two comments which were ads - wanting me to get 'my site' more publicity. I am assuming they aren't members because they comments had to be curated. I deleted them. Should I do anything else.
Comments that are phishing
I get those from time to time and just delete. I don't think there's any more to be done. We can't report them because they aren't members. At least they never go live on my site so I'm the only one that knows about them and it's only a minor hassle to remove them.
ok thanks
THis is still going on. It has become more than a minor hassle. Almost every day I get a comment from this website (different names) to be moderated. I tried going to the site but I can't do that without subscribing which I don't want to do.
I have been deleting the possibility for non-members to reply, but I don't really want to do that either.
What would happen if I just left the comments awaiting moderation and did not delete them?
You'd continue getting spam comments, and might after a while have difficulty finding comments from real people that'd need approval.
Definitely NEVER visit any URL put in spam comments! That's just confirming to the spammers that their spam attempts have a positive effect.
The only way to stop this type of automated spam attack is to close your blog to comments from non-members, or possibly to give your blog a new subdomain. If you're lucky, keeping it closed for a month or two would be enough for them to stop trying, so you can open up again after that, but I doubt it.
[ Edit: Edited on 7 Feb 2021, 19:58 GMT by Sander ]
Quoting Sander
You'd continue getting spam comments, and might after a while have difficulty finding comments from real people that'd need approval.
Definitely NEVER visit any URL put in spam comments! That's just confirming to the spammers that their spam attempts have a positive effect.
The only way to stop this type of automated spam attack is to close your blog to comments from non-members, or possibly to give your blog a new subdomain. If you're lucky, keeping it closed for a month or two would be enough for them to stop trying, so you can open up again after that, but I doubt it.
Or you can limit the time during which comments can be posted. I had mine set on unlimited but have cut that down to 30 or 60 days on most of the for the time being, while I'm not travelling at all and therefore also not posting. I figure any genuine person who wanted to comment on my old stuff has done so by now! I may increase it again in the future when I get more active at posting again.