How to Prevent Spam Comments on A WordPress Website

Contents hide

1 What are Spam Comments?

2 How to Prevent Spam Comments on A WordPress Website

2.1 Disable Comments Completely

2.2 Set A Limit for Links in Comments

2.3 Manually Approve Comments

2.4 Install A Spam Checker Plugin

3 Similar posts:

Have you been looking for ways to reduce or prevent spam on your WordPress website? You have come to the right page. This article shall focus on discussing ways to prevent spam comments on a WordPress website.

Also, See:

What are Spam Comments?

Spam on websites usually comes in the form of comments. A WordPress website usually has the comment feature available for use, although its usage for the visitors depending on whether the feature is activated for users or not.

There are different forms by which spam comments are posted on blogs. Some come as irrelevant messages on a particular post while some may contain some links to certain websites. The most common form of spam comments on a website is the one with misleading links. This has become so common for some reasons which include desperation in advertising a product or getting traffic to a website.

Moreso, many bloggers do this in a bid to increase their backlinks and improve their search performance results since backlinks to a website contribute a major part of Google search algorithm. However, the side effect of spam comments on a website cannot be overlooked. A website with some spam comments may lose its value gradually to the visitors because of misleading information. So, if you are working on building your website and visitors, it is best to prevent spam comments on the website.

Now, let’s see the different ways to prevent spam comments on a WordPress website.

How to Prevent Spam Comments on A WordPress Website

Disable Comments Completely

One of the fastest ways to curb spam comments on a WordPress website is to disable the comment feature completely. When you disable comments, then there is no need to worry about spam comments in any way.

Although as effective as it may be, if comments are disabled, users will not be able to post a comment whatsoever on the website. However, the implication of disabling comments on a WordPress website is that, for any article written, readers will not be able to communicate their feedback on whatever you discussed and it may be displeasing.

Also, there are times when they might need to ask necessary questions related to the topic of discussion. My point of saying all this is, before you disable comments on your WordPress website, think about the implication as well.

To disable comments on a WordPress website, navigate to Settings from your backend and then click on Discussion. Under Default article settings, uncheck the box that says “Allow people to post comments on new articles” and save as shown below.

Also, See:

Set A Limit for Links in Comments

Another way to prevent spam comments is to set a limit for links that can appear in a post.

When you set this and comment has more than the limit you have set, then the comment is flagged as spam and will require your action as admin before approval.

This is a great way to check spam comments although, it only checks spam comments with links.

However, an administrator needs to moderate any comment flagged as spam and this option can be of an advantage to the website administrator. You can edit the spam comment, move to trash or delete permanently.

To set a limit for links in comments on a WordPress website, navigate to Settings from your backend and then click on Discussion. Finally, look for Comment moderation and enter the number of links that should be in a comment before it is held for moderation as shown below.

Manually Approve Comments

Approving comments manually is the best way to check spam comments but, it is very time-consuming especially, for a website writing on how to solve issues and receives lots of traffic.

When you activate this feature, it means that for every new comment on your WordPress website, you have to manually check for spam and then decide whether to approve the comment or delete.

As I said, it is very time-consuming. More time will be consumed basically to check and approve comments on a website.

To activate this option on your website, navigate to Settings from your backend and then click on Discussion. Finally, check the box that says “Comment must be manually approved before it appears” as shown below.

Install A Spam Checker Plugin

A better and more efficient way of solving spam comment issues on a WordPress website is by installing a spam checker plugin. There are a lot of plugins that have been designed to serve this purpose. All that is needed is to visit the add new plugin page and search for “spam checker plugins”. You can visit the page, install and activate one of such plugins.

However, out of the several plugins that you can use, Akismet is a good choice to consider. Akismet is WordPress designed and owned. Although it doesn’t come for free, you can start with the free plan and use the basic features. The plugin does not only check spam comments, but it also blocks malicious attacks and logins to your WordPress website making it a perfect choice for your use.

To start with, download the Akismet plugin from here. Now, proceed to your WordPress backend and add a new plugin. Select the directory you have it downloaded then install and activate. Upon activation, you will be required to proceed with a login to your WordPress.com account to set-up a free plan.

Further, proceed to set up the spam checking options according to whether you want spam comments discarded silently without your notice or to be notified for every spam received

Also, See:

Here is the end of this post on how to prevent spam comments on WordPress websites. If you have found it helpful, kindly leave your comment below. Finally, don’t forget to share this post with friends, sharing is caring!

About
Latest Posts

Goodness

Goodness is a lover of technology. He frequently writes about tech products on the Dextrava Blog.