This video gives a little background on what Mollom is, and shows how to create an account on Mollom.com, and create a subscription for a site.

If you would like to allow anonymous users to create an account, create content, or comment on your site, but don't want to leave it vulnerable to spam, you'll need to install some form of spam protection. There are numerous ways to do this. One of the most common is to use a captcha module like reCAPTCHA. Another option (and my preferred method) is to use the Mollom module. Mollom is a third party service that has plugins and integration with a variety of software including Drupal, Wordpress, .NET, Ruby and a number of other systems. One of its most useful features is that, regardless of the platform it is implemented on, it references a central repository of known spam, and everyone who uses it can contribute to and benefit from that central repository.

It was originally created by Dries Buytaert (the same guy that originally created Drupal) and has been acquired by Acquia (a well established Drupal company), so there's plenty of authority and experience behind it. For more information, take a look at Mollom.com.

Mollom works in a few ways:
* It has the option of displaying a "CAPTCHA", which is the typical "Type what you see in the box" form of protection that we all love to hate.
* It can also perform text analysis, which is a more advanced, user-friendly form of protection. This option will analyze the text of a completed form for spammy content, instead of requiring the user to complete an annoying captcha.
* Another way Mollom protects all forms is by using a "honeypot". Basically, this adds a hidden field (hidden using css) to the form that users don't see (and therefore don't fill in), but spambots blindly fill out because they're just entering data into every available field. This effectively reveals them as spambots, and the submission can be flagged as spam without requiring moderator interaction.

Create an account on mollom.com and get product keys

In order to use Mollom, you need to signup for an account at Mollom.com. There are multiple tiers of mollom protection. Depending on the size of your site and how many forms you choose to protect the free version may be sufficient.

  • Go to Mollom.com
  • Click “Get Started”. (Here you can see the various tiers and choose whichever one you want.)
  • I'll click "Get mollom free" and create a new account. (At the bottom of the form, you'll see the "captcha" option that mollom provides. This is the typical type of captcha you see across the web, but I'm going to show you a much better one once we get it installed.)

And now we see a notice that our password and further instructions have been sent to our e-mail address, so let's go check that and finish setting up our account. I'm going to click the link in the email to log in and set my password now to something that I'll remember.

When I click "save", I'm taken to the "Add subscription" page. I'll go ahead and fill out this page:
* URL: http://loc.mollom.com:8082
* Type: Personal site
* Site language: English
* Site software: Drupal
* [x] I have read and accept the terms of service
* Click "Next"
* Click "Complete subscription"
* Click "view keys" to see the Public and Private keys. (We'll need these to link our site with the Mollom service.)

Now, we're ready to install the module on our site