Semalt Expert: WordPress Spam Comments – 5 Simple Techniques To Deal With

If your WordPress site or blog is also receiving spam comments, you should learn and adapt these techniques stipulated by Jack Miller, a leading specialist from Semalt Digital Services.

1. Delete the spam comments manually:

It is important to keep an eye on your comments and where do they come from. Using Akismet or other similar plugins can get you a lot of benefits, but there is no alternative to manual deletion. You should frequently check and delete the comments that look illegal or contain some keywords or suspicious backlinks. Make sure you have emptied the trash once the malicious comments have been deleted from your blog.

2. Hold the comments for moderation:

It is up to you how much time you need to check, approve or reject the comments. Meanwhile, you can hold them for moderation and don't let anyone directly publish the comments on your blog posts. I'd rather preferred holding the comments for a while than using Akismet. I check every comment and make sure that it is not created by a spammer or bots. The comments that contain malicious links, keywords or irrelevant discussions should not be approved, but deleted from your website. In simple words, we can say that you should put the tick on the comments when you trust any reader and let him post his comments directly and without any moderation.

3. Modify the .htaccess file to prevent WordPress spam comments:

Your .htaccess file will help you tighten the WordPress blog's security to an extent. The short lines of codes are far better than the long lines and will reduce the number of spam comments. Once you have accessed the .htaccess file in your WordPress account, you should deny the bots with the following code:

# Protect from spam and bots

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.yourwebsite.com.* [OR]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$

RewriteRule (.*) ^http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]

Bots and spiders are the most irritating pests so preventing them with this code is very easy and effective.

4. Ban the spammers' IP addresses:

When a person comments on your blog, his IP address gets recorded on your WordPress account. You should check all the IP addresses randomly and block the IPs that look suspicious and strange. You can block as many IP addresses as possible or can use a WordPress plugin to block all the suspicious IPs permanently. Alternatively, you can add this code to the root .htaccess file to block the suspicious IP addresses.

# block ip

order allow, deny

deny from 192.168.44.211

deny from 224.39.163.11

deny from 172.16.7.91

5. Install the anti-spam plugin:

There are hundreds of thousands of plugins you can use to get rid of spam comments. As I told you that I didn't use Akismet, but I had once tried Quiz. This plugin is present in Wordpress's Plugin directory and can be installed free of cost. This plugin helps prevent the WordPress spam and the troll comments by asking the commenter to answer a couple of questions.