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Spam and profanity are a big problem for anyone with a WordPress site. Whether yours is a simple website with a few pages or a multi-user platform that hosts tons of user-generated content, you need to be wary of both. We’ve covered the best anti spam WordPress plugins on the blog before, and while spam […]
The post How to Add WordPress Profanity Filters appeared first on WPExplorer.
For years, the vast majority of Akismet releases have been centered around bug fixes and improving compatibility with various plugins. Version 5.0 was released today, following 4.2.5 earlier this month, with a new feature that should improve Askismet’s ability to detect spam comments.
Akismet engineer Christopher Finke explained how the plugin will now analyze how a comment is posted, in addition to analyzing what is posted:
A typical human commenter on the Web takes about 40 seconds to read a blog post and another 40 seconds to write and submit a comment. Their typing speed varies significantly throughout the creation of their comment, and they regularly use their mouse to click around the page. An automated spambot (even one programmed to act like a person) doesn’t act so human-like: its typing speed and mouseclick speed are superhumanly consistent. It doesn’t spend time “reading” blog posts. Its mouse usage is sparse.
This new feature can detect spam that is posted in a machine-like fashion, even if the spambot is attempting to post a comment with content identical to one that has already been approved.
“The Akismet plugin will begin observing these behaviors so that they can be used as part of the spam-checking process,” Finke said. “None of this data is personally identifiable, and it won’t be used for any purpose other than identifying spam.”
Akismet is bundled with WordPress and is active on more than 5 million sites. More than 62% of users are running on 4.2.x and ~38% are on version 4.1 or older. WordPress users who are having a lot of spam breaking through Akismet’s protection will want to upgrade to take advantage of the new spambot detection features in version 5.0.
Are you looking for the best plugins to improve WordPress comments?
Comments can help boost user engagement and build a community. The default WordPress commenting system is good, but it’s quite basic. Luckily, there are tons of plugins that can help you create a more engaging comment section.
In this article, we will show you some of the best WordPress comment plugins to improve the default comment section and get more interaction on your site.
On its own, the native WordPress comment system includes some basic functions for users to leave blog comments and reply to other people’s comments.
While this is helpful, there’s room for improvement. If you are a WordPress blogger looking to build an audience, then you will need additional tools to make commenting on your blog more fun, exciting, and user-friendly.
You may need tools to keep spam comments at bay and prevent malicious links from endangering your users. Or, you may want to redirect the commenter to a relevant page to keep them on your website for longer.
We tested these plugins: When choosing the plugins for this showcase, we installed each tool on our test site to explore its pros, cons, and features. This allowed us to recommend only the very best WordPress comment plugins.
With that in mind, let’s look at the best plugins to improve your WordPress comments and optimize the user experience.
Out of all the comment plugins we’ve tried, Thrive Comments by Thrive Themes is the best. It has everything you need to improve your comments, from an easy moderation feature to post-comment actions that can turn commenters into leads or customers.
Thrive Comments comes with a built-in, keyboard-controlled comment moderation dashboard. With this, you can quickly reply, delete, and even assign comments to other admins, a feature unavailable in the native WordPress commenting system.
When users leave a comment, you can redirect them to a specific URL, show them a related post, or display an email opt-in form using Thrive Leads. It’s a great way to improve your user engagement metrics.
Pros of Thrive Comments:
Cons of Thrive Comments:
Why we chose Thrive Comments: If you are looking for the best, overall WordPress comment plugin, then look no further than Thrive Comments. It has all the features needed to build an engaged and interactive community on your WordPress site.
Do you work in a team and want to let a specific user moderate comments in WordPress? Then check out Comment Moderation Role by WPBeginner. It’s a simple plugin that creates a new ‘WPB Comment Moderator’ user role in WordPress.
Any user with this role can log in to your WordPress website and moderate comments without accessing other areas of your admin.
This is perfect if you have a support team or staff members who are responsible for moderating comments, but these people don’t need unrestricted access to your entire WordPress admin area.
Pros of Comment Moderation Role:
Cons of Comment Moderation Role:
Why we chose Comment Moderation Role: If you want a no-frills plugin to add a specific user role for moderating comments, then this plugin is your best solution. Once installed, you can immediately change a user’s role to WPB Comment Moderator.
If your blog posts get tons of comment threads, then that’s great for your user engagement. But at times, users may want to look through these long comments to find the information they need.
Meet SearchWP, a WordPress search engine plugin that can make navigating your website much easier. Besides creating a search function to discover pages or posts, SearchWP can also make blog comments searchable.
SearchWP offers several ways to add a search form through the Modular Search Form add-on: your navigation menu, a Gutenberg block, or a shortcode. You can use the last two to add a search function right above the comment section in your single post template.
Pros of SearchWP:
Cons of SearchWP:
Why we chose SearchWP: If you want to improve your comment section with a search feature, then SearchWP makes this super easy to do. As you get more blog comments, you may need to make them searchable so that users can easily find the right information.
You will find many plugins on this list that let you optimize your built-in comment section, but what happens after users leave comments? That’s what Uncanny Automator is for.
Maybe besides sending an email notification, you also want to send an SMS notification to users with their comment replies. Or maybe you want to send them a coupon to thank them for leaving comments.
With Uncanny Automator, you can easily create automated workflows for those scenarios on your WordPress site. These workflows can save you time and give the people who visit your website a better experience.
Pros of Uncanny Automator:
Cons of Uncanny Automator:
Why we chose Uncanny Automator: We know how important it is to keep commenters coming back and engaging with your website. Uncanny Automator lets you set up automatic post-comment actions, turning occasional visitors into regular ones.
Do you want to send email notifications to your commenters about new replies? If so, then check out Better Notifications for WP.
By default, WordPress only sends comment notifications to site administrators and the article’s author. But with this plugin, you can change which type of notifications are sent out and who gets these comment notification emails.
For example, you can create a new notification for replies. As a result, users can come back and react to the latest responses to their comments, boosting engagement.
Pros of Better Notifications for WordPress:
Cons of Better Notifications for WordPress:
Why we chose Better Notifications for WordPress: Notifying users of new replies is a great way to boost user engagement and get more comments, which is why we recommend this plugin. That said, you may also need an SMTP plugin to make sure your emails are received, which brings us to the next plugin.
The WordPress not sending emails issue is one of the most common problems WordPress users face. That’s why we don’t recommend using WordPress to send your email newsletter.
That said, there may be cases where you still use WordPress to send emails, like notifications about users’ comments. In this case, you will want to use WP Mail SMTP.
WP Mail SMTP is the best WordPress SMTP plugin that allows you to easily send WordPress emails using secure mail transfer protocol or SMTP. This helps ensure all your WordPress emails are delivered successfully, including comment notifications.
Pros of WP Mail SMTP:
Cons of WP Mail SMTP:
Why we chose WP Mail SMTP: This plugin can ensure that all comment-related emails actually get received and, in turn, your commenters can come back to engage more with your blog posts.
Trusted by 100+ million websites, Akismet is a popular WordPress anti-spam plugin.
The free plugin includes basic spam filtering and spam protection features. It can spot spammy comments off the bat so that they won’t show up in your comment section. You will also get detailed stats to see how much spam Akismet has blocked.
However, the free plugin includes limited API calls, so if you get many comments, then Akismet cannot check them all. We recommend upgrading to the premium version to get more API calls per month.
Pros of Akismet:
Cons of Akismet:
Why we chose Akismet: Spam comments are a common problem in WordPress, and sometimes, WordPress’ moderation feature isn’t enough. Akismet is one of the best comment plugins for easily combatting spam and maintaining a positive user experience.
You can read more about Akismet in our opinion piece on why you should use Akismet.
Anti-spam tools like Akismet are great for filtering out comments left by automated spam bots. However, you can protect your site further by preventing users from inserting spammy or malicious links into their comments.
Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools can help prevent exactly that. It can remove the ‘Website URL’ field from the comment form, as well as the author’s website hyperlink.
This plugin also automatically removes hyperlinks from the existing comments on your WordPress website. So, the URLs will still be displayed in your comments, but they won’t be hyperlinked. This way, visitors can still benefit from any genuine and helpful links.
Pros of Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools:
Cons of Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools:
Why we chose Comment Link Remove and Other Comment Tools: If you are looking to remove the Website URL field and all existing links from your comments without any code, then this plugin can easily get the job done.
Sometimes a user may submit a comment, only to immediately realize they have made a spelling mistake or some other grammatical error. This isn’t your website’s fault, but it is still a bad experience for your visitors.
Comment Edit Core solves this problem by letting users edit their own comments on your website.
You can use this plugin to specify how long visitors can edit or even delete a comment after posting it. This time limit is important, as it protects your website from spammers who might go back and try to add links to comments that you’ve already approved.
Pros of Comment Edit Core:
Cons of Comment Edit Core:
Why we chose Comment Edit Core: This plugin is simple to use and adds important functionality to improve your commenting experience. For more details on this plugin, check out our guide on how to allow users to edit comments in WordPress.
Depending on your website, you may want to add some extra custom fields to your comment form. For example, you might add an extra checkbox for commenters to sign up for your email newsletter.
Comments Extra Fields makes it easy to add custom fields to the standard WordPress comment form.
You can make the information entered in these fields invisible or visible to everyone. Furthermore, you can set rules for when these fields should appear in the comment section, which is great if your blog covers different topics.
Pros of Comment Extra Fields:
Cons of Comment Extra Fields:
Why we chose Comment Extra Fields: This plugin offers so many ways to customize your comment section, make it more exciting, and even turn commenters into leads. This can be beneficial if you want to make the most out of your comments.
wpDiscuz is an AJAX-powered WordPress comment plugin.
It has a unique inline commenting feature. With this, you can add a handy button within your blog content to encourage discussion. Visitors can simply click on it to express their thoughts on that post’s particular section.
wpDiscuz also comes with live comment bubble notifications. It works like a real-time social proof notification on your website, letting visitors know about new comments as they are being posted and inviting them to join the conversation.
Pros of wpDiscuz:
Cons of wpDiscuz:
Why we chose wpDiscuz: For a free WordPress comment plugin, wpDiscuz is pretty powerful and can be a good option for people looking for a free solution. Just make sure to monitor your site performance if you enable Ajax-powered features like live updates.
At times, users might want to react to your blog post but they hesitate to write a comment. Maybe they are not sure what exactly to say or they are just shy.
Ever since social media existed, users have become familiar with giving reactions to posts using emojis. That’s what WP Reactions is for: adding a reaction feature between your blog post content and your comment section.
This plugin offers over 200 emoji reactions to choose from and add to your comment section. As a result, users who are not used to commenting can easily engage with your blog content without typing a long message.
Pros of WP Reactions:
Cons of WP Reactions:
Why we chose WP Reactions: This WordPress plugin provides an easy way for users to engage with your blog post with just one simple click. If you want to learn more about using it, check out our article on how to engage readers with post reactions in WordPress.
Do you want to enable social login options in your WordPress comments section? If so, then check out Super Socializer. This feature is a great way to make posting comments faster and easier for users.
With this, users won’t need to manually insert their name and email to leave comments. They just need to click a few buttons and they are logged in to their social network. It also prevents users from using fake names in comments.
Other than that, the plugin includes a social commenting feature. This lets you add extra comment sections like Facebook comments. For Facebook users, this lets them skip the login step entirely and just leave a comment right away.
Pros of Super Socializer:
Cons of Super Socializer:
Why we chose Super Socializer: This plugin provides an easy way to enable social logins and make people less hesitant to leave comments. Our article on how to style the WordPress comment form can give you step-by-step instructions on how to use it.
If you are running an eCommerce website using WooCommerce, then your product pages’ comment sections will be changed to review/testimonial sections.
That said, the built-in review feature is basic. For example, customers can’t add photos to their reviews. Because of this, we recommend installing a WooCommerce review add-on like YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews.
With this WooCommerce plugin, customers can upload photos to their reviews to describe their experience with your product. Potential customers can also mark reviews as helpful to help fellow users make their purchase decisions.
Pros of YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews:
Cons of YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews:
Why we chose YITH WooCommerce Advanced Reviews: While this plugin comes at a cost, it offers all the essentials needed to optimize your product review section. You can think of it as an investment to gain more social proof and build your reputation.
Have you been getting so many comments that your page load time has slowed way down? If so, then check out Lazy Load for Comments.
This simple plugin adds a lazy loading feature inside your WordPress Discussion Settings page (above the Avatars section). You can choose whether to load the comments upon scrolling or when the user clicks on it.
Lazy loading improves performance by only loading necessary elements when they’re needed, reducing the initial page load time.
Pros of Lazy Load for Comments:
Cons of Lazy Load for Comments:
Why we chose Lazy Load for Comments: If you just want a simple plugin to lazy load your comments, then this plugin does a great job. However, if you want an all-in-one comment plugin with a lazy loading feature, then consider Thrive Comments instead.
Moderating comments in WordPress can be a bit challenging, especially when there are many comment threads to review. If your readers are aware of and adhere to the commenting rules, then the process can become much simpler.
Comment Hacks is a WordPress comment plugin that lets you enable a comment policy for your website.
Users will have to go to the comment policy page and confirm they’ve read it before they can leave a comment. As a result, you can get more genuine and positive comments on your website.
Pros of Comment Hacks:
Cons of Comment Hacks:
Why we chose Comment Hacks: This WordPress comment plugin is really helpful if you get lots of comments, want to keep things positive, and don’t want any spam. It makes your job easier by stopping bad comments before they show up.
Out of all the plugins we’ve tested, the best WordPress comment plugin is Thrive Comments.
This plugin is a complete package, offering features to moderate your comment section, make it more interactive, and even convert commenters into leads or customers. While it’s a paid plugin, it’s a worthwhile investment for bloggers looking to build an engaged audience.
That said, many plugins on this list serve various purposes, so we encourage you to give them all a try and see which one is best for your needs.
Now that we’ve listed all of the best WordPress comment plugins, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
Are comments important for SEO?
Yes, comments are important for SEO. They can function as signals telling search engines that people like your brand and engage with it. Other than that, the “free” content that comes from the commenters can add additional value to your articles.
Is it ok to disable your comment section?
If you run a blog and your goal is to build a following, then you should enable your comment section. Allowing comments is also good for increasing your user engagement metrics, which can be good for SEO.
Is the Disqus comment system good for SEO?
Any comment system is technically good for SEO, regardless of the platform.
However, in our experience, Disqus inserted affiliate links and sponsored comments without our permission. This can hurt your site’s SEO, as search engines don’t like it when websites don’t disclose their paid content.
For this reason, we did not include Disqus in our list. You can read more about our experience of why we switched away from Disqus.
We hope this article helped you find the best plugins to improve your WordPress comments. You may also want to see our guide on must-have WordPress plugins to grow your website and our ultimate list of blogging statistics, trends, and data.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post 16 Best Plugins to Improve WordPress Comments (2024) first appeared on WPBeginner.
Do you want to allow blog users to moderate comments in WordPress?
If your site gets a lot of comments, then it can be difficult to moderate them all. One solution is creating a separate user role so that other people can manage the comments for you.
In this article, we will show you how to allow blog users to easily moderate comments on your WordPress blog.
Comment moderation can take a lot of time and effort, especially for big blogs that get lots of comments. If you are slow to approve comments or delete spam, then visitors may stop interacting with you.
By giving blog users the power to moderate comments, you can combat spam and deliver a better experience for your visitors.
These users might be members of your customer support team, your community manager, or even an active and trusted commenter on your WordPress blog.
By default, WordPress doesn’t let you create a user who is only responsible for moderating comments. With that being said, let’s see how you can easily allow blog users to moderate comments using a WordPress plugin.
Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.
The Comment Moderation Role plugin allows you to quickly and easily give a comment moderator role to specific users. This plugin creates a new WPB Comment Moderator role that enables the user to approve, decline, or edit comments on any post without giving them access to other parts of the WordPress dashboard.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you will have access to a new user role called ‘WPB Comment Moderator’.
To assign this role to an existing user, simply go to Users » All Users. Then, check the box next to that person’s username.
After that, simply open the ‘Change role to…’ dropdown menu and select the ‘WPB Comment Moderator’ role.
You can then go ahead and click on ‘Change’.
Now, this person will have access to the WordPress comment moderation panel.
You can also create a new user and assign them the comment moderator role. To do this, simply go to Users » Add New and enter the person’s information, such as their email address.
Next, you need to open the ‘Role’ dropdown and select ‘WPB Comment Moderator’.
When you are happy with the information you have entered, just click on the ‘Add New User’ button.
Now, this person can log in to their account and see a comment moderation dashboard, similar to the image below.
As you can see, this person can only moderate comments and edit their profile. All other WordPress admin dashboard features are hidden.
You can also add the comment moderation permission to a user role or even create a completely new user role for managing your site’s comments.
This is a great choice if you want to allow multiple people to moderate comments.
For example, you might create a comment moderation team or give your site’s Contributors permission to moderate comments. This makes it easy for guest bloggers to interact with their readers.
The easiest way to edit user permissions in WordPress is by using the Members plugin. This free plugin allows you to customize the permissions for every user role and even create completely new roles.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate Members. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, go to the Members » Roles page to see all the different user roles on your WordPress website.
To start, you can add the comment moderation permission to any existing user role.
To do that, simply hover over that role and then click on the ‘Edit’ link when it appears.
The left column shows all the different types of content, such as reusable blocks and WooCommerce products. Simply click on a tab, and you will see all the permissions for that content type.
To allow users to moderate comments, you need to select the ‘General’ tab in the left-hand menu. Then, find ‘Moderate Comments’ and check the ‘Grant’ box.
With that done, simply click on ‘Update’ to save your changes. Now, anyone with this user role can moderate your website’s comments.
Another option is to create a new user role by going to Members » Add New Role. You can now type in a title for the new role, such as Community Manager, Comment Moderator, or something similar.
After that, you can add the comment moderator permission to this role by following the same process described above. To give this role additional permissions, simply check any of the other ‘Grant’ boxes.
For more details on user roles and permissions, please see our beginner’s guide to WordPress user roles and permissions.
When you are happy with how the user role is set up, don’t forget to click on ‘Add Role.’
Now, you can assign this role to anyone who needs the comment moderator permission. For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to add new users and authors to your WordPress blog.
We hope this article helped you learn how to allow blog users to moderate comments in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert picks for the best email marketing services for small business and read our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress site.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
The post How to Allow Blog Users to Moderate Comments in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
After a supply chain attack that saw the software update feature of the Passwordstate password manager hijacked the threat group developed a convincing phishing campaign targeting enterprise users of the password manager solution.
The attack only lasted 28 hours before it was identified and blocked, but in order to remove the malware from customers’ devices, Click Studios, the developer of the password app, emailed customers and encouraged them to apply a hotfix to remove the malware.
Gmail is very effective at filtering spam emails but spammers seem to have figured out a new way to bypass the spam filters and send emails that land right in the user’s inbox. The emails are sent through Google Forms and because the messages originate from Google’s own email servers, they do not get caught in the spam filters.
Here’s how spam emails are sent through Google Forms.
Now the spammers can simply open the Google Form, fill in the recipient’s email address and hit the submit button.
Google Forms will automatically email a copy of the form response, including all the pictures and links contained in the original form, to the email address that was entered in the form.
Here’s a screenshot of one such email from Google Forms that easily tricked the spam filters.
If you would like to prevent spam emails from Google Forms from landing in your inbox, Gmail filters can help.
All pre-filled Google Forms emails have the sender’s email address as below:
forms-receipts-noreply@google.comYou can create a filter in Gmail that will automatically delete emails that have Google Forms as the sender.
Alternatively, you may open the form link from the email and click the “Report Abuse” button to report the form to Google. That is not likely to be a very effective strategy though as spammers can always switch to a different Google account.
I was trying to research the landscape of these the other day — And by research, I mean light Googling and asking on Twitter. Weirdly, very little comes to mind when thinking about spam detection APIs. I mean some kind of URL endpoint, paid or not, where you can hit it with a block of text and whatever metadata it wants and it'll tell you if it's spam or not. Seems like something an absolute buttload of the internet could use and something companies of any size could monetize or offer free to show off their smart computer machines.
You might think of Akismet as a WordPress thing, and it is. It's an Automattic product and is perhaps primarily used as a WordPress plugin. I run that here on CSS-Tricks and it's blocked 1,989,326 so far.
It also has a generic API. There are libraries for Dart, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Go, etc, as well as plugins for other CMSs. So if you use a different CMS or have your custom app, you can still use Akismet for spam detection.
After you get an API key, you can POST to a URL endpoint with all the data it needs and it'll respond true if it's spam or false if it's not.
To get better results over time, you can also submit content telling it if it's spam or ham (ham is the opposite of spam... good content).
Several folks mentioned Plino to me.
There is a lot to like here, like the fact that it's free and returns a JSON response like you might be used to in development. There is the fancy buzzword "Machine Learning" being used here, too. It makes me think that with lots of people using this, it'll get smarter and smarter as it goes. But there is no way to submit ham/spam, so I'm not sure that's really the case.
There is other stuff that makes me nervous. It's clearly on Heroku which is kinda expensive at scale, and so with no pricing model it seems like it could go away anytime. Sorta feels like a fun-but-abandoned side project. Last commit was two years ago, as I write.
OOPSpam looks super similar to Plino, but has a pricing model, which is nice. They publish their latency, which is over two seconds. I haven't compared that to the others so I have no idea if they are all that slow. Two seconds seems like a lot for an API call to me, but maybe it's not that big of a deal since it's an async submit?
CleanTalk has a clear pricing structure and appears to have plenty of customers, which is a plus to me. The website looks a little janky though, which makes me worry a little.
(Sorry if that's a little rude, but it's just mental math to me. Good design is one of the least expensive investments a company can make to increase trust, so companies that overlook it make me wonder.)
It looks like they have a variety of anti-spam solutions though, which is interesting. For example, you can ask an API to see if an IP, email, or domain is on a blacklist, which is a pretty raw way of blocking bad stuff, but useful for stuff like protecting against spam registrations (rather than just checking blocks of text). They also have a firewall solution, which is interesting for folks trying to block spam before it even touches their servers.
There are a couple out there that seem rather specific to testing emails. As in, testing your own emails before you send them to make sure they aren't considered spam by email services. Here are a couple I cam across while looking around:
The post Spam Detection APIs appeared first on CSS-Tricks.
Are you getting tired of dealing with comment spam on your WordPress blog? Well, you are not alone.
Spam comments are a huge problem especially if you are not prepared to deal with them properly.
In this article, we’ll share the best WordPress comment spam plugins and helpful tips to combat spam comments in WordPress. These tips will save you a lot of time and will significantly eliminate comment spam from your website.
Internet is full of spam bots that automatically spread links for nefarious websites in the form of comment spam. The purpose of these spam comments is to get ranked in search engines and also to get accidental clicks from unsuspecting visitors.
But not all comment spam is submitted by bots. There are actual human submitted spam comments as well. These off-topic and poorly written comments are harder to catch and often contain links to third-party websites.
If you are not monitoring your website and these comments get published, then both your actual users and search engines will be able to see them.
This affects your website’s reputation. Users would consider your website to be a low quality or spam website.
Search engines can also mark your website as unsafe if they found links to websites that distribute malware and viruses.
That being said, let’s see how you can combat comment spam effectively, so that you spend less time worrying about spam and more time on growing your online business.
Let’s first make sure that no comment on your website is published without your approval. This step will ensure that comments don’t bypass any filters, and it will also give you full control on which comments appear on your website.
This solution is highly recommended for business websites such as law firms, accounting, etc.
Head over to the Settings » Discussion page inside WordPress admin area. Next, scroll down to the ‘Before a comment appears’ section and check the box next to ‘Comment must be manually approved’ option.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save changes’ button to store your settings.
All your WordPress comments will now be held for moderation and you will have to manually approve each comment before it appears on your website.
Now you may be wondering how would I go through all the comments? Well in the next few tips, we will show you how to eliminate spam comments so that you only have to go through genuine comments.
Akismet is an anti-spam plugin that comes pre-installed with WordPress. It filters all WordPress comments on your website through their anti-spam database and catches the most common types of spam comments.
Akismet is available as a free plugin, but you’ll need to signup for their API key. You can get it free for a personal blog or a small website.
To set it up, see our guide on how to set up Akismet for beginners with step by step instructions.
While Akismet is able to catch a lot of spam comments, it cannot stop spammers from accessing your website. Too many requests from spammers to submit comments can slow down your website and affect performance.
This is where Sucuri comes in. It is the best WordPress firewall plugin that allows you to block suspicious requests before they even reach your website.
They can prevent automated bots and scripts from submitting comments. This reduces the load on your servers and the number of spam comments you receive.
Honeypot technology is an effective method to trick spambots into identifying themselves. Once they are identified their comments can be blocked.
First, you need to install and activate the Antispam Bee plugin. Upon activation simply go to Settings » Antispam Bee page and check the option to mark as spam for all honeypot caught comments.
Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.
The plugin will now use the honeypot technique to catch the bad spam bots. It also has other antispam filter such as validate the IP address from your WordPress comment blacklist, look at bbcode, look in local spam database, and more.
Using reCAPTCHA in WP Comments plugin, you can enable Google reCAPTCHA challenge on your comment forms.
ReCAPTCHA is an advanced form of CAPTCHA, which is a technology used to differentiate between robots and human users. CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.
Google makes it easy for users to verify their identity by simply clicking on the checkbox button.
For spambots, this technology is quite hard to bypass because when Google detects a spam bot, it gives them a much harder challenge.
See our guide on how to how to add reCAPTCHA to WordPress comments.
Note: while most WordPress comment captcha plugins are annoying, this is the best form of CAPTCHA you can use.
The URL field in the comment form attracts not only spammers (both automated and human), but it also invites people who have absolutely no interest in the discussion at all.
These comments usually contain a line or two of irrelevant nonsense, and the comment author name will contain a keyword or a combination of a real name with keywords like Sally from Dunder Mifflin, or John @SEOconsultants, etc.
Simply add the following code to your WordPress theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
function wpb_disable_comment_url($fields) {
unset($fields['url']);
return $fields;
}
add_filter('comment_form_default_fields','wpb_disable_comment_url');
This code simply filters the WordPress comment form fields and removes the website field from the form.
Note: you will need to login to your WordPress hosting via FTP to upload the code above.
WordPress automatically creates image attachment pages where users can see an image and even leave a comment on it.
If you are linking your images to the attachment page, then after a while you will have a lot of attachment pages with comments enabled on them.
If images are a central part of your content, then that’s fine. But if you don’t want users to comment on images, then you should turn off comments on media attachments.
The easiest way to do this is by installing the Disable Comments plugin. Upon activation, go to Settings » Disable Comments page and check the box next to ‘Media’ option.
Click on the save changes button to store your settings. The plugin will now disable comments on your WordPress media files and attachments.
Another handy tip to discourage links in comments is disabling HTML in comments. HTML can be used to hide spam links in WordPress comments.
Simply add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
function wpb_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) {
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment['comment_content']);
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = str_replace( "'", ''', $incoming_comment['comment_content'] );
return( $incoming_comment );
}
function wpb_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) {
$comment_to_display = str_replace( ''', "'", $comment_to_display );
return $comment_to_display;
}
add_filter( 'preprocess_comment', 'wpb_comment_post', '', 1);
add_filter( 'comment_text', 'wpb_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter( 'comment_text_rss', 'wpb_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter( 'comment_excerpt', 'wpb_comment_display', '', 1);
remove_filter( 'comment_text', 'make_clickable', 9 );
This code changes HTML code into HTML entities which are displayed as the code and are not parsed by the browser.
Another way to combat comment spam is by using Yoast Comment Hacks plugin to set a minimum and maximum comment length.
Recently we ran into a comment spam problem where a spammer was leaving hundreds of comments per hour with a single word: hello.
Akismet and Sucuri were not able to block this because the comment looked natural. Antispam bee honeypot slowed the spammer down, but it too wasn’t able to entirely block the attack.
We simply enabled the Yoast Comment Hacks plugin and set the minimum comment length. This forces the user to leave a more meaningful comment instead of just a one word message.
A big portion of comment SPAM is trackbacks. For most blogs, it is not necessary to have trackbacks enabled. You can choose to disable trackbacks on your entire blog or in an individual post. This is an easy way to significantly reduce comment SPAM.
You can find the above option by visiting Settings » Discussion. This will turn off trackbacks for your entire site.
WordPress allows you to turn off comments on old posts. This particularly helpful for websites publishing content that is more timely like news or events websites.
Simply go to Settings » Discussion, under ‘Other comment settings’ you will see the option ‘Automatically close comments on articles older than’. Check the box next to this option and enter the number of days you want comments to be displayed on a post.
WordPress will now automatically close comments on posts older than the number of days you defined for this option. If you need, you can override comment deadline in WordPress for individual posts where you would like comments to remain open.
In case you feel that you don’t need comments on your WordPress site, or comment moderation goes out of your hands, remember that you can always switch off comments in WordPress. All you have to do is go to Settings » Discussion and uncheck the box next to ‘Allow people to post comments on new articles’.
You can also make comments for registered users only by checking the box in your Settings ~ Discussion page. For more details, see our guide on how to completely disable comments in WordPress.
Why are they spamming me?
Spammers want to get better search rankings or lure unsuspecting visitors to dubious and malicious sites. They think that by spamming they can get more links, and it will somehow positively affect their search rankings.
In most cases, it is not a personal attack against you rather it’s a systematic process that targets many blogs.
What happens to comments that are marked as “Spam”?
The comments that you mark as spam, are not displayed on your website. You can delete Spammed comments in batch and/or recover good comments from the SPAM list.
Why is every comment going into the moderation queue?
You enabled the comment moderation as the first tip in this article. This gives you absolute control on any comment that gets published on your website.
We hope this article helped you find useful tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to grow your website traffic and convert users into subscribers by creating an email newsletter.
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