Dealing with WordPress Spam

One of the downsides of running a WordPress website is the amount of spam that can come through the comments and contact form. This spam is usually in the form of weird comments, sometimes in Russian or a foreign language and sometimes in the form of comments that seem like they could be real but you can tell they’re fake.

So how are these comments and spam contacts coming through so frequently?

What is happening is robotics software is looking for WordPress software and then auto-sending those messages out to thousands of WordPress blogs at one time. 99% of the time these comments are not from humans, and rather are from spamming software that usually originates overseas. That’s why they don’t make sense in what the comments are saying is the messages are software generated by people whose first language isn’t English.

So what do we do about WordPress spam?

Well there’s actually some very easy solutions starting with a couple plugins. They should be used independently, trying the first one and then possibly the second if the first plugin doesn’t work.

The first spam blocking plugin is called Akismet. It is a good spam blocker. Recently with the updated PHP it hasn’t worked very well and a different plug-in has had to be used called spam protector.

The other plugin is called Anti-Spam by CleanTalk and works pretty good as well. It seems to block all spam, so try both of these solutions and see which one works best for you.

Stopping the spam comments is a good idea because it reduces the amount of bandwidth required for your website and therefore speeds up the overall site load. (Also, super annoying to continuously get these messages in your inbox.) And that brings up another place that spam comes into a website and that is through the contact form. The contact form spam can be stopped by using Google CAPTCHA.

Let me know if you have any questions about these tools or how to get them set up. Also, how is spam affecting your site currently? Drop a comment below and let’s discuss it!

0 replies

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Written by: Jophiel Silvestrone

Jophiel Silvestrone has written 326 posts in the Tech Blog.

Jophiel grew up on a ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana near Chico Hot Springs. Working on the ranch instilled work ethic and self motivation. Filled with this drive, Jophiel started mowing the local school's yards twice a month throughout the summers, at the age of 12. He moved to Billings in 2004, where he has been deeply involved in the local business community ever since. A serial entrepreneur, Jophiel has ran multiple businesses in our local community. The first business, a janitorial and carpet cleaning company, founded in 2005, has employed over 50 locals. Moving on to the media industry, Jophiel and several partners founded Green Directory Montana in the spring of 2007. Green Directory's sustainability ranking software awarded points based on sustainable or "green" actions. These points counted towards a business's total "Green Score," which in turn ranked them against other businesses in their category and throughout the entire site. It also featured a limited edition print version distributed annually. A business acquisition allowed Jophiel to focus on new projects, and a few close business colleagues and Jophiel started Rocky Mountain Mr. & Ms. Magazine, a lifestyle publication for men and women in the Magic City. After a year and a half at the helm of RM3 Magazine, the business was purchased. He now runs a web development company SkyPoint Studios and fathers his son Jaoquin, who plays football, basketball, soccer, and is learning snowboarding from his dad. Recently, has expanded to locations in Havasu, Arizona & Vegas. SkyPoint Studios is a market leader in both Billings & Havasu and Jophiel is working on building that same level of market dominance in Vegas. Specialties: Extensive experience in online and offline business. Especially savvy at WordPress, and operate several sites, one example is the blog: skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com/tech-blog. Check out skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com for the latest projects from SkyPoint Studios.