One thing that every serious blogger appreciates is the honest feedback from the readers in the form of comments. Comments not only help you to assess your potential as a blogger but also start the conversation around your blog post. Over some time, it also helps in creating a loyal group of readers. Needless to say, Google also uses comments as one of the parameters to determine the reputation and ranking of a website.
However, with the rewards comes the responsibilities and risks. One of the major risks here is spamming. Many people comment on your site or blog to place their hyperlink and get quick SEO benefits. Such irrelevant comments not only harm your SEO attempts and ranking but also inflate the database and slow down your site speed thus annoying your audience. This could seem to be an alarming issue but not anymore! You have come to the right page where you will get multiple tips, tricks, and tools to prevent the spam comments on your WordPress site or blog. Keeping in mind your convenience, we have mentioned as many as 8 different effective ways to stop spam comments from plaguing your WordPress blog. So, let us start without any further delay:
Personal monitoring
Personal monitoring is of vital importance to fight the spam comments. As a site owner, you have complete right over monitoring the comments and filtering out the ones that are inappropriate or irrelevant to your blog post. However, many bloggers are not aware of how to utilize this privilege. So, here is an easy and quick way to enable personal comment monitoring and approval:
• Go to Settings and click Discussion Page
• Look for the section before a comment appears with several options in the form of checkboxes
• Check the box “Comments must be manually approved and save changes.
Once enabled, it will channel all the comments to you for approval so that you can filter out the spam ones and allow only the genuine comments that add value to your blog post.
Akismet Anti-Spam
WP offers Akismet plug-in to all its users by default, so all you need to do is to activate it. Utilizing the anti-spam database this plug-in can easily identify the common types of spam comment and filter them out.
As a small website or an individual blog you can use the plug-in for free. Just register yourself for their API key.
Many spammers are so stubborn that they find out some of the other ways to spam. They can even go on to harm your site in various other ways. So, you might wish to fully stop the spammers from accessing your site to remain on the safer side. This is what exactly the third tip aims at.
Sucuri for combating Spam Bots
The volume of traffic directly affects the performance and loading speed of your site. The worthless traffic of spammers and their multiple requests can jam your site thus annoying the genuine visitors.
The ultimate solution is to fully stop the spammers from accessing your site and installing a WordPress firewall plug-in is the easiest way to do that. The best option here is Sucuri as it holds a proven track record of creating a solid wall to keep away the spammers from your site. Equipped with the sophisticated features, it can instantly recognize the comment submission requests from spambots/automated scripts and deny them the access
Equipped with the sophisticated features it can instantly identify the comment submission request from the spam bots and denying them the access. It not only saves you from spam comments but also protects your site from performance or speed issues.
Trap Spam Bots with HoneyPot
Many spambots are so clever that they can easily mask themselves. For that, you would need some smarter mechanism. Honeypot technology is the option that you need to adopt. This technology plays tricks on the spambots in such a way that the spambots readily declare their identity.
• Install Antispam bee plug-in and activate it.
• Now head over to the settings and go to Antispam bee page.
• Click the checkbox option “Mark ss spam for all honeypot caught comments” and click save
Identify spambots with Google reCAPTCHA
Installing Google reCAPTCHA is another vital method to fight the spambots effectively. Google reCAPTCHA uses a simple single-click step for human visitors to verify the identity before completing an action or getting access. However, this step is extremely difficult for the spambots and failing to prove their identity will result in a tougher challenge that requires human intelligence like identifying all the instances of a specific object from a set of images.
WP Spamshield
If you are looking for robust multi-layer protection against spam comments then you can use WP Spamshield. It is a dynamic high stamina antispam plug-in that can instantly identify the spambots and automated scripts and effectively prevents them from commenting. Besides, it also employs a sophisticated algorithm to further check and push out the comments that have succeeded in dodging the initial layer of security.
One thing that offers it a distinct identity is that its ability to seamlessly sync with other popular plugins like Woocommerce, Contact form 7 and Gravity forms to help you enjoy the higher level of security while working with your favorite plugins.
AntiSpam by Clean Talk
One of the major concerns of the users is how to disable specific locations, emails or IPs from commenting on your blog. If it is something that worries you, then Antispam by Cleantalk is the ultimate solution for you. Using a simple quick process you can instruct this plug-in to block specific comment requests asked on criteria like email address, IP address, locations, etc.
Along with the above mentioned USP the plug-in aptly provides the regular anti-spam functionality like monitoring and disabling the suspicious comments.
WordPress Zero Spam
If you are just a beginner and get a very low amount of spam comments then it would be alright for you to use an easy to use the lightweight anti-spam plug-in with easy control options. WordPress Zero Spam is the plug-in that caters to your needs without forcing you to go through any complicated process. Set up is easy and quick. You don’t have to worry about the APIs either. The plug-in is ideal for the small blogs and low-traffic websites that are looking for an easy to use option for disabling spam comments. Another good thing is that it can be easily integrated with the popular contact form plugins like Gravity forms, BuddyPress, Ninja forms and form 7.
A Bonus Tip
If you are looking for a neat, no-hassle way of stopping the spam comment without having to monitor them or actively involving yourself in the process at any level, then the best solution is to go for specific commenting system. Multiple options under this system involve social media like Facebook and Twitter or a more dedicated ecosystem like Disqus. In simple words, you continue enjoying the SEO juice of comments while delegating the heavy responsibility of stopping spam to the other highly capable platforms like Facebook or Disqus. For instance, facebook simply eliminates the link benefit of commenting by using the personal profile in place of URL.
Conclusion
Spam comments hurt your blog's SEO and annoys the readers. You should proactively monitor and delete spam comments on your WP website. An even better way will be to stop any comments being posted publicly without your approval as it will give you an extended control to disapprove any spam comments and that can annoy the readers or affect your blog's.