I have a client Rebecca Caroe of Rowperfect that I work closely with on her blog. She will often send me little tip bits of information that she comes across when surfing the internet, and asks whether it is of any benefit for her site or my other customers. There have been many times that this has been invaluable. An extra pair of eyes on the internet never goes astray.
On this occassion I was directed towards Andy Beard's post "Akismet False Positives & Spam Karma Configuration". While Andy does not actually say Spam Karma is the be all and end all for blog spam, his enthusiasm does. It may indeed warrant a closer look, however as I've noted, many people are looking for that holy grail of the ultimate spam killer, a "set it and forget it" solution.
The sad reality is that because bloggers are using freely available plugins, the very same plugins are also freely available to the programmers working for the spammers. The plugins become victims of their own success. The more popular they are the more targeted they will be.
Towards then end of his post, Andy goes on to suggest a combination of spam filter plugins. This the best solution, a combination of filters makes your defenses less predictable and more complex for the spambots, especially if you choose your own cocktail of spam filters.
