[wp-hackers] Trackback Validator plugin now available.

[Dougal Campbell]

Dan Sandler wrote:
>> Its no doubt that this plugin will eliminate almost all of Trackback 
>> SPAM, but then, there will be a lot of false positives as well, 
>> because people who generally use Trackback, they don't link to 
>> (all)the websites/blogs where they are sending trackbacks.  [example 
>> given]
> 
> 
> So, this is an interesting question.  Is Trackback-without-link that 
> common a use case?

That probably depends on 1) who you ask, and 2) your definition of 
"common" :)

> [In my own personal experience, I don't think I've ever TB'd a site 
> without sending a URL (thanks to WordPress doing the right thing), and I 
> can't remember ever having received a URL-less TB.  (But my mileage 
> varies, apparently.)]

I've both sent and received legitimate trackbacks without reciprocal 
linkage. However, I'd say that it's not a frequent occurence. Most of 
the time I'm only trackbacking something that I'm linking to.

> My personal opinion is that "provide a URL if you want to Trackback me" 
> is a reasonable limitation to place on the technology in order to curb 
> abuse, but if linkless Trackbacks make up more than (say) 25% of all 
> valid TBs, I guess it's not so reasonable.

Providing the option to send them to moderation would probably be good.

Personally, I've found that a well-populated set of moderation and 
blacklist keys keeps my site pretty clean. Every once in a while I see 
spurts of some new type of spam run that makes it through. But those 
just become new data for the spam words.

-- 
Dougal Campbell <dougal at gunters.org>
http://dougal.gunters.org/