I’ve been hit by trackback spam. I decided to do what we did with the comment spam – I renamed wp-trackback.php to a random string, and changed the reference in wp-includes/functions.php. Hopefully trackbacks still work while preventing further spam. We’ll see.
That will stop the trackback spammers, because it’s stopping everyone from doing it. You forgot to change it in the .htaccess file.
I just got hit by about 40 trackback spams even though all posts no longer allow pings. I’m baffled as to how they did it, so I’ve renamed mine as well. It means that no one will be able to trackback my posts, but I see little alternative at the moment.
I notice that you don’t have any trackback URLs in your posts, or at least a few of them that I visibly checked.
What is the point of keeping trackbacks operational, if no one knows the trackback URL?
Anyway, thanks for the idea, anything is worth a shot.
Thanks for the tip, dan. I’ve updated the .htaccess file.
Please remove my two postings, that includes this one, from your comment list. I was comment #1, and the comments were edited after my posting to reorder Dan’s comment to place #1. It’s a pretty neat “trick”.
In placement #2, my comment no longer makes logical, not to mention semantic, sense.
That makes this an unfriendly blog. I will refrain from further posts here.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I don’t understand how that happened.
Isn’t there a WordPress equivalent to MT-Blacklist?
Hey Elliot,
I’d recommend checking out this site and implementing the suggestions there. http://www.coldforged.org/archives/2005/01/25/killing-referral-spam/
Also, the plugin Spam Karma (http://www.unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma) is excellent. It comes with a blacklisting feature too. It even comes with a cool interface and ability to see the spam that was blocked. An illustrated guide is here: http://www.jonabad.com/spamkarma/sk_doc.html
Scott
I’ve got a workup for wordpress trackback spam that you might want to try. It has been working pretty well for me over the past 2 weeks or so. All you have to do is add the terms you want to blacklist to the array. Check it out if you are interested and let me know what you think.
http://vaxcave.com/index.php?p=305
Note that a couple of researchers at Rice University have released a Trackback spam blocker plugin for WordPress that uses a different approach: their Trackback Validator Plugin checks to make sure that the sites which send you Trackback pings really do link to you, a test that most Trackback spammers fail.
I had many troubles regarding trackback spams!! But after using Spam karma 2 i have never face this till yet.
It was 2 months before while i was not using SK2 and thus heavily hit by spam.Using spam karma 2 was a great and annoyless experience.
Nice post … I’ll try renaming the trackback.php
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