This documentation applies to the 1.7 version of the Mollom module. For more up-to-date information on the more recent 6.x-1.x versions, try http://mollom.com/tutorials/drupal .

End of Life Announcement

The Mollom content moderation service is no longer available. Acquia support and maintenance for Mollom ended as of 2 April 2018.

Mollom launched in 2008 to make it easy for people to ensure the quality of content posted to their online applications. Mollom was used widely in the Drupal community and blocked more than 13.5 billion spam comments since its inception. Mollom has helped grow many web applications, but the online comment and SPAM blocking ecosystems have evolved over the years.

We hope that you have had a positive experience using Mollom, and we look forward to making other products that will improve the quality and content of your applications in the future. Thank you for being part of the Mollom community and the Drupal community as a whole.
Sincerely,
The Mollom Team

Mollom provides a one-stop solution for all spam problems and protects the following Drupal forms:

  1. Comment forms
  2. Contact forms
  3. User registration forms
  4. Password request forms
  5. Any node form, including forum topics, articles, stories, pages, and more. As you create new content types with CCK, additional settings to protect these forms appear on your Mollom setting page.

Mollom intelligently combines text analysis, reputation models and both image and audio CAPTCHAs to block spammers in an optimal and non-intrusive way. For more information about Mollom, you can read this Mollom introduction, check the top 10 Mollom features, consult the extensive Mollom FAQ, or download the Mollom technical whitepaper.

Mollom is available in both free and subscription-only versions. Although the free version is a perfect fit for many sites, its subscription-only service, Mollom Plus, provides support for large post volumes and has access to an enhanced backend server architecture not available to Mollom Free clients. Mollom was initially developed for Drupal, although a number of other clients and development libraries are available.

Mollom is actively developed and maintained by Dries Buytaert, the founder and project lead of Drupal, and Benjamin Schrauwen. Mollom is currently in use by Sony, FastCompany, Adobe, LinuxJournal, Warner Bros, etc. The Mollom module is included in the Acquia Drupal distribution.

Installing Mollom's spam protection module

  1. Download the Mollom module from the project page or from Mollom.com. Be sure to pick a version of the Mollom client that matches your version of Drupal. The module package should be placed with the rest of your contributed Drupal modules (generally, in "sites/all/modules" or "sites/default/modules").
  2. Go to Mollom.com.
  3. Login with your Mollom.com account, or create an account if you don't have one.
  4. Select "Manage sites" from the upper right menu at Mollom.com.
  5. Select "Add new site" to tie a new website to your account. A key pair will be automatically created (Or use the 'edit' link to modify site or subscription details).
  6. Visit your site's module list (Administer >> Site building >> Modules) and enable the Mollom module.
  7. Visit your site's Mollom settings page (Administer >> Site configuration >> Mollom) and enter the key pair associated with your site (from step 5).
  8. Review the other Mollom settings and adjust as necessary.

Managing spam with Mollom

Mollom allows flexibility in protecting your forms from spam

When configuring Mollom, select the forms you wish Mollom to protect (shown below), and how you wish them to be protected. When you enable "Text analysis with CAPTCHA backup" for a form, its content will be analyzed in real-time for spam-like characteristics; if the content is definitely spam, the form submission will be blocked. If Mollom is unsure, the user is challenged with an audio and video CAPTCHA; successful CAPTCHA responses allow the form to be processed. If you select "CAPTCHA only" for a form, a CAPTCHA challenge is always displayed: a successful response to the challenge allows the form to be submitted, while an incorrect response does not. You may also select "No protection" if you wish to not use Mollom with this form.

If the content might be spam, Mollom inserts a CAPTCHA.

Mollom analyzes content and rates it on its likelihood of being spam. But unlike other filtering services that only rate content with either a "ham" (not-spam) or "spam" result, Mollom also includes "unsure". If Mollom is unsure if content is spam, it presents a challenge to the user in the form of an audio/visual CAPTCHA (shown below). If the user can interactively complete the CAPTCHA, the content is processed as normal; if not, the content is blocked.

Mollom keeps you informed about your site's spam traffic.

At Mollom's administration page (Administer > Site configuration > Mollom), the Mollom module interacts with the Mollom server network to present an interactive graph (shown below) of your site's spam activity.

Mollom dramatically reduces time spent on comment moderation and spam deletion.

Mollom essentially eliminates the need for your comment approval queue. By analyzing the content of comments as they are posted, good comments pass through while spam comments are blocked. When Mollom is unsure about the content of a comment, it directs your site to present a CAPTCHA challenge to the poster. But, if you'd like to manually flag a comment as spam using the comment administration page, Mollom allows you to do so (shown below).

Mollom adjusts its spam filters based on your actions.

If an inappropriate posting is left on your site, you have the option to delete it via a link on the comment itself. As you do so, you're prompted to tell Mollom exactly how the comment is inappropriate for your site (shown below). Mollom learns from the comments you manually block as spam, and incorporates that knowledge into its content analysis engine.