6 Ways to Get Rid of Comment Spam on Your WordPress Site

Comment spam is an unfortunate reality of the internet. You will have to deal with spammers if you allow comments on your website. You’ll need to find a means to halt comment spam in its tracks if you don’t want your site to make a bad first impression.

While you may never be able to completely remove spam, you can certainly slow it down. There are a number of easy modifications WordPress users may do to ban or conceal these comments before they are seen by visitors. You may further strengthen your defences by using a powerful anti-spam plugin.

We’ll speak about what comment spam is and why it happens in this piece. Then we’ll teach you how to block comment spam on your WordPress site in six simple steps. Let’s have a peek, shall we?

What is comment spam (and why is it so problematic)?

The general nature of spam comments makes them easy to spot. If you allow comments on your site, you’ll almost certainly get some spam. As your website becomes more popular, spam is going to become a bigger problem. There are many different sorts of comment spam nowadays, but the majority of it is automated, with spam bots using brief, generic posts as a cover for inserting links.

Comment spam, in whatever shape it takes, is a serious issue because: When your comment areas are clogged with spam messages, it’s difficult for legitimate visitors to engage in dialogue.

Spamming your material with spam comments makes your site appear unprofessional.

Many of these comments contain malicious links intended to deceive users into disclosing personal information. Clearly, doing everything you can to prevent comment spam from appearing on your WordPress site is critical. Fortunately, once you know the appropriate strategies, this isn’t difficult to do.

How to prevent spam comments on your WordPress blog (6 simple solutions)

The six techniques listed below are all effective strategies to prevent comment spam on your website. You can attempt all of these approaches or pick and choose which ones are best appropriate for your situation.

1. Limit the amount of links that can be included in each post.

As previously stated, the majority of comment spam is intended to include links in your comment box and fool users into clicking on them. As a result, allowing fewer links in your comments is one strategy to fight spam. Legitimate visitors will also be stopped from providing several links, but the potential annoyance of slowing down the spammers may be worth it.

You may make this adjustment by going to Settings > Discussion in your WordPress dashboard. Look for the section on comment moderation:

You can choose the maximum number of links that can be included in a remark before it is marked for moderation. If you wish to need moderation for any remark with links, you may even lower the number to zero.

2. Make a list of terms that should be avoided.

Many spam comments contain a large number of easily identifiable keywords. This makes it easy to identify them and prevent them from showing up on your site. You may simply establish a ‘blacklist’ of terms, and every remark containing one of them will be flagged.

Return to your WordPress dashboard’s Settings > Discussion and look for the Comment Blacklist section:

You may enter your word list here. Any remark that contains one of those terms will be deleted without a second thought. Of course, it’s critical to carefully select the words in your blacklist so that valid users’ comments aren’t deleted. Check out the suggested comment blacklist for WordPress on GitHub for more ideas.

3. Only allow registered users to leave comments.

Most spammers want to post on as many pages and websites as they can. This implies that if you make it more difficult for people to leave comments on your site, they may simply go on to the next one.

This may be accomplished by limiting comment access to those who have registered on your website. Spammers will face an additional barrier in your comment area as a result of this. It also invites visitors to create an account or join a club as a side benefit.

This option is also accessible in WordPress’s Settings Discussion section. It may be found under Other comment settings:

Simply mark the box that says To comment and save changes, users must be registered and signed in.

4. Create a method for comment moderation.

In a nutshell, comment moderation is when you require a human to approve some or all comments before they may appear on your site. This might be a good technique if you have the time and money to spare. You may easily enable a comment moderation system in WordPress.

Simply return to Discussion Settings and look at the section under “Before a remark appears”:

Any comments left on your site will be marked as Pending until they are evaluated if you select Comment must be manually authorized. You may then examine each one and decide whether to accept it or reject it. The WordPress Codex has further information on how to set up a comment moderation system.

5. Use an anti-spam plugin if you haven’t already.

Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t bring up anti-spam plugins. These tools may be a valuable tool for preventing comment spam and weeding out the good from the bad for you.

Akismet is included in many WordPress installations, and for good reason:

This anti-spam plugin links to a spam database that is regularly updated, so it’s really good at identifying which comments are problematic and filtering them out. It also allows you to view which comments have been marked as spam.

For most people, Akismet is a good choice, but there are lots of other good options. Antispam Bee, for example, is a well-reviewed plugin with several options and capabilities. Regardless of the plugin you use, you’ll be taking a crucial step in preventing comment spam on your site.

6. Make the switch to a new commenting system (like Disqus)

Although this strategy will not work for many sites, some third-party comment systems, such as Disqus, can assist you in removing the majority of the spam. We utiliseDisqus at Themeisle (you can see it in action by scrolling down and leaving a comment on this post!). Use Facebook comments on your website as another alternative.

Spam comments may quickly clog up your site, making it appear unprofessional and driving away legitimate users. It’s difficult to clean up all that spam after the fact. As a result, you should seriously consider investing some effort up front in building a solid anti-spam approach.

You may use the following methods to prevent comment spam on your WordPress site:

• Reduce the amount of links that can be included in each post.
• Make a list of terms that should be avoided.
• Create a method for comment moderation.
• Only allow registered users to leave comments.
• Make use of an anti-spam plugin like Akismet.
• Make the switch to a third-party commenting plugin.