WordPress and spam: how to avoid it?

Since the two go hand in hand, it is virtually impossible to dissociate a WordPress site from the spam it is exposed to. Nothing builds a reputation quite like spam.

For those who have never heard of it, spam is the nickname given to an annoying commercial comment that someone may leave on your site. Extremely disruptive when it appears on your site, spam tends to show up on all pages and very often repeatedly. A genuine headache, it can cause a certain amount of damage. All the more so because, in some cases, the constant flow of it drives people mad, and making it disappear takes time and effort.

What can spam do to me?

In most cases, published by bots, spam comments can appear numerous times on your site, disrupting discussions, comment threads, and other interactions. Spam generally includes links to other commercial sites — a devious technique that is far from welcome on an e-commerce site.

Spam contains links intended to confuse visitors and redirect them to other sites. On top of disrupting conversations in your WordPress, spam can also damage your reputation in the eyes of internet users. Worse still, Google may blacklist your WordPress site as a result. Now that you are aware of the damage spam can do to your business, it is absolutely crucial to prevent it at all costs.

How do you get rid of it?

Settings are your friend

The first and simplest solution is to configure your WordPress site against comment spam. This will not eliminate it entirely, but it will stop a good portion of spammers.

To do this, simply access discussion settings (Settings → Discussion) and tick or untick the boxes according to your preferences.

Among the changes you can make to your settings, it is possible to activate a Blacklist. This will automatically classify as "spam" any messages containing words you choose to ban. Bear in mind, however, that this should be used with care.

Well beyond simply configuring your WordPress site against all types of spam, you can also add anti-spam plugins to your site — completely free of charge!

Plugins to fight the infestation:

Completely free of charge, anti-spam plugins will further help you limit spam attacks on your site.

• Akismet, the adaptive and dynamic plugin: It is the number-one WordPress anti-spam plugin, with a spam comment filtering rate of almost 100%. Free for personal users and low-cost for individuals, Akismet will automatically remove your spam and learn from your actions in order to anticipate future removal of unwanted messages.
• Anti Spam Bee, the protective bee for WordPress: free and easier to configure than Akismet, Anti Spam Bee was the first plugin to stop trackback and pingback spam. Recommended by Matt Mullenweg himself.

Like it or not, and despite taking precautions, your site may still be subject to spam comments. Offensive or not, they are disruptive to the growth of your organisation and, in certain cases, to your company image.

Now it's your turn!

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