Stopping Comment Spam in WordPress
You want a site that accepts comments to establish a conversation with your readers.
But once you operate a site with comments, you will find a lot of folk want to try and get a link to their site from yours.
A comment with a link to a site selling Viagra is the last thing you want. But exactly what comment spammers want.
Comment spammers go to surprisingly great lengths to lodge a comment. It is a lot like spammers flooding you with junk mail. (And just like junk mail, comment spam can be pretty awful).
Want to stop comment spam cold?
We’ve got ways and means of filtering comment spam. But just as trapping junk mail leaves the junk in a filter box, trapping comment spam does the same.
You may not even want to see comment spam trapped in a filter box. Stopping comment spam from being displayed to the public is one thing, but stopping it being displayed possibly to your business partners, employees or content team is another thing entirely
If you just want stop the whole comment spam issue dead, restrict comments to registered users.
Set this up under Dashboard, Settings, General). That will stop comments for everyone, unless you give them a username and password to your site.
OM4 uses several defences against comment spam.
Comment Options. You can turn off comments altogether if you want – see the sidebar.
Spam Protection for Comments and Comment Forms. This is an OM4 plugin that requires visitors to solve a simple mathematical problem (four plus three equals) before being able to enter a comment or send a contact form request. It should be active unless instructed otherwise.
Bad Behavior. This plugin is available on all OM4 blogs, and should be active unless you are instructed otherwise. It detects attempts to lodge spam comments and blocks them.
The option of turning off comments, or using the two free plugins provided, may be all you require.
Akismet
This plugin is installed but not activated by default. It is highly effective at filtering comment spam that may get past Bad Behavior and Spam Protection for Comments and Comment Forms. We don’t recommend you use this unless spam gets past the free plugins.
When Akismet users notice a spam comment that gets past the filter, they report it to the global Akismet database, and that helps Akismet get smarter at detecting future comment spam.
To activate it, you require an Akismet API key. These are available in different ways:
- Personal Use: Akismet is free, register for a userid at WordPress.com – lookup your API key under your Profile.
- Not for Profit: Akismet is free if you display the required acknowledgement and link in your footer, or available at half price – see the Not For Profit guidlines.
- Pro Blogger Commercial Use: if your use of WordPress falls into Automattic’s definition of a Pro Blogger, you can buy an Akismet API key for $5/mth.
- Commercial Use. If you are running a commercial site on WordPress, you require a commercial Akismet API key to run Akismet. You can purchase one of these from Automattic from $50/mth, or from OM4 for $19/mth.
One you have your Akismet API key, you activate it as follows:
- Go to Dashboard, Plugins and activate the Akismet plugin
- Go to Dashboard, Plugins, Akismet Configuration, enter your key and press Update