If you have been around WordPress sites for a while, I’m sure that you know what spam is and how annoying it can be. But if you are new to this, spam is unwanted data that acts as a parasite or a leach and should be removed thoroughly.
Sick and tired of #spam? Use one of these anti-spam #plugins to get rid of it, for good, at least on your own site!
Blogs are a typical target for spam comments. Some people use bots to generate multiple comments at a time and then spam them on sites/blogs for backlinks. So if you are running a blog or you are simply starting a new site, you must take spam protection seriously if you don’t want your site’s overall quality to go down.
Getting rid of spam is a simple process that can be done with the help of WordPress plugins quite quickly. There is a lot of junk on the Internet and it doesn’t benefit anyone else besides the spammers themselves.
Spam comments can cause your WordPress site a few problems such as slowing down your site’s performance, eating your network’s bandwidth, and more. This will cause your loyal members to have a bad experience and will result in higher bounce rates, and traffic loss.
Obviously, you don’t want that to happen and thus, you need to get rid of spam comments as soon as possible. Thankfully, there are many WordPress plugins, both free and paid, that can help you get rid of spam comments with just a few clicks here and there.
So basically, there really is no need to spend time deleting spam comments one by one, as you can remove them quite easily with the following anti-spam plugins and save a lot of time and effort.
Akismet Anti-Spam
If you were to ask a renowned web developer to recommend an anti-spam WordPress plugin – the first thing to pop in their mind would be Akismet, as it is the most popular and most widely used anti-spam WordPress plugin.
Its user base features over 5 million installations and the plugin has received some nice reviews as well.
The plugin comes directly from WordPress’s developers – Automattic, which ensures the best compatibility support and regular updates, of course.
To use the plugin, you’ll have to sign up at Akismet.com to get an API key, which you can use to activate the plugin. You can get the key for free if you are going to use it for personal and noncommercial use (personal blogs). Keep in mind that you’ll be limited to 50,000 comment checks per month. However, if you need more, you can get one of the paid versions (Plus or Enterprise), for $5 and $50.
Akismet checks comments and contact form submissions on your site/blog against its global database of spam, and blocks all malicious content from being published.
The data is uploaded to Akismet’s cloud servers for their algorithms to evaluate the safety of the comments. The ones containing spam are directly transferred to the spam queue. The clean ones, on the other hand, are directly moderated and published on the site/blog.
In case Akismet can’t figure out if something is spam or not, it’ll move the comment to the moderation queue, where you can decide what to do with it.
Features
- Automatically checks all comments and filters out the ones that contain spam
- Status history allows you to see which comments were detected and/or cleared by the plugin, and which were marked as spam or were unspammed by an admin or moderator
- URLs in the comment body reveal hidden or misleading links
- Moderators see the number of approved comments from all users
- A discard feature blocks the worst spam, which saves disk space and speeds up your site’s performance
Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is probably the best alternative to Akismet, as it has been growing quite rapidly lately.
This plugin is a quick fix for all those unwanted spam comments that you’ve been getting. The plugin keeps IP address trackbacks in case the spammers want to come back to spam more and it blocks them from doing so.
All users go through the validation process and are synchronized with the centralized server. On top of that, the notification system notifies you of any spam comments and it automatically clears spam folders.
Also, you can use this plugin to block or allow comments from different countries and/or delete spam comments after a set number of days.
The best thing is that the Antispam Bee plugin does all of this completely for free and all you need to do is find it in the WordPress database and activate it. Unlike Akismet, you don’t need to register to get an API key.
Features
- Trust approved commenters
- Trust commenters with Gravatars
- Allow comments only in a specific language(s).
- Block or allow commenters from specific countries of origin
- See BBCode as spam
- Validate commenters IP address
- Search the local spam database for commenters who have already been marked as spammers
- E-mail spam notifications for admins
- Remove existing spam after a desired number of days
- Limit approval to comments/pings (deletes other comment types).
- Set spam indicators that send comments for automatic removal
- Exclude trackbacks and pingbacks from spam – ON/OFF
- Check comment forms on archive pages for spam – ON/OFF
- Show spam statistics such as daily updates of the spam detection rate and the total number of successfully blocked spam comments
Spam Destroyer
Spam Destroyer is another free WordPress plugin and its goal is to prevent and block automated (bot) spam without any effort.
It is very easy to set up. Simply install the plugin and activate it, and you are good to go.
Even though, there are no actual settings or features to select or configure, it serves its purpose, as it is quite effortless to use.
There are two anti-spam payloads, a cookie, and a hidden input field which are both created/verified by JavaScript. Meaning anyone trying to bypass this plugin needs to process both cookies and/or JavaScript.
WP Bruiser
With the WP Bruiser plugin, anti-spam is applied on signup pages, login and password reset pages and spam is stopped before it gets posted.
The plugin is free and you can configure the settings through its interface with just a few clicks.
Keep your contact forms, lost password forms, login forms, registration forms, and comments safe from a potential outside breach. And use its various security features to block IP addresses and prevent bots from enumerating users through “/?author=N” scans.
Also, get notifications when attacks are detected and even get detailed spam reports.
WPBruiser is very compatible and supports the following extensions – Contact Form 7, WooCommerce, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, AffiliateWP, Easy Digital Downloads, etc.
Its powerful algorithms identify spam bots without having to use captcha images. And the plugin prevents and blocks spam comments, spam-bot signups, as well as brute force attacks.
Most of the other plugins typically store spam in its own folder, which uses some resources. However, WPBruiser ensures that the bots don’t leave any spam at all.
Conclusion
If for some reason you are dissatisfied with the plugins I’ve listed so far, you can try out the following alternatives that offer similar features:
Lastly, I want to say, that you should remember to maintain the highest quality of your WordPress website by using these highly effective plugins that will help you get rid of unwanted spam.
Anti-spam plugins help you keep your site in perfect shape and if you are on a tight budget, there are many free solutions that work just fine.