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Protect You WordPress Blog Against SPAM Comments

WordPress is one of the powerful and famous open source blogging software. Most of blogs are WordPress as it is free and easy. First time when I started blogging as a WordPress Blogger , I was very happy with WordPress but soon I faced a Critical problem – Comment Spams .

Today it’s a big problem for every new WordPress bloggers . Then I googled about this problem and found a lot of solutions by a lot of peoples .

I tried about all of them but only some helped me. Today I’m going to explore some best of them to protect your WordPress blog from Spam Comments.

How To Protect You WordPress Blog Against SPAM Comments

SPAM filter-Anti SPAM

As per my experience, there are three most effective ways to reduce comment spams in WordPress.

  1. Using Cloudflare
  2. Using WordPress Security Plugins
  3. Using Anti-Spam Plugins

1. I am Using Cloudflare: faster loading website

Cloudflare Security For WordPress

Cloudflare protects your blog or website from a wide range of online threats from spammers to SQL injection to DDOS.Cloudflare automatically optimize the delivery of your web pages so your visitors get the fastest page load times and best performance. They also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources. CloudFlare-powered websites see a significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks.Cloudflare’s core service is free and they also offer enhanced services for websites who need extra features like real time reporting or SSL.

On average, a website on CloudFlare

– loads twice as fast
– uses 60% less bandwidth
– has 65% fewer requests
– is way more secure

Cloudflare can be easily integrated with any web hosting provider. It take any 5 mins and they your website will be supercharged.You don’t need to change your anything in your existing website , you only need to change only nameservers of your domain .

Website : cloudflare.com

2. Using WordPress Security Plugins

This is also a very effective way to prevent SPAM’s an HAM’s . These plugins not only protect your blog against SPAM but also cares security of your blog .These plugins helped me a lot of during Global Attack on WordPress in Last Month .Below I listed three best Security plugins which also works against SPAM’s as per my experience .

a. Better WP Security

WordPress Plugin Better WP Security

Better WP Security helps you to  protect your WordPress Blog from attackers. Hardens standard WordPress security by hiding vital areas of your site, protecting access to important files via htaccess, preventing brute-force login attempts, detecting attack attempts,preventing SPAM’s and more.

  • Author : Bit51
  • WordPress Plugin Page :http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/better-wp-security/
  • Official Plugin Page : http://bit51.com/software/better-wp-security/

b. WP-DenyHost

WP-DenyHost WordPress Security Plugin

WP-DenyHost will block a spammer or Bot if he already has been flagged as a spammer. It uses the Akismet plugin to flag Spammer. If Akismet flags any IP as spammer then WP-DenyHost prevents him from accessing your site or blog. It also decrease load on server and increase speed your blog .

  • Author : Per Soderlind
  • WordPress Plugin Page : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-denyhost/
  • Official Plugin Page : http://soderlind.no/wp-denyhost/

c. iQ Block Country

If you want to block people from certain (obscure) countries that have no business visiting your blog and perhaps only leave spam comments or other harmful actions than this is the plugin for you.This plugin uses the GeoLite database from Maxmind. It has a 99.5% accuracy so that is pretty good.

  • WordPress Plugin Page : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/iq-block-country/

3. Using WordPress Anti-SPAM Plugins

If you want to just prevent your from spams, hams etc. , then these plugins works best for you. Normally Anti-spam plugin blocks spam in comments but some of them also prevent SPAM registration in your wordPress blog .You can see that there are a lot of anti-spam plugins claiming to be best but actually only some among them are good . Below I listed top 5 Anti Spam WordPress plugins as per my experience and experiments  .

a. Akismet

Akismet Anti SPAM Best WordPress Plugin

Akismet  is one of the most used WordPress plugins across world. It plays a major role in fighting against spams.Akismet comes Pre-installed with WordPress.Many Plugins like WP-DenyHost,Conditional CAPTCHA uses it as a base plugin.You need an Akismet API key to use this plugin which can be generated from it’s official website akismet.com .This Key is free for personal use. As per my suggestion you must activate and use  it before blogging .

“I Love Akismet is the best automated spam killer that actually gets better as it learns.”

 WordPress URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

b. Conditional CAPTCHA

It’s another very useful anti-spam plugin which works with Akismet .It has two modes

  • Basic Mode
  • Akismet-enhanced mode

In Basic Mode plugin will serve a CAPTCHA to all commenters that aren’t logged in and don’t have a previously approved comment. Repeat commenters will never see a CAPTCHA .

In Akismet-enhanced mode the plugin will serve a CAPTCHA only if Akismet identifies a comment as spam (much less frequently than the basic mode).This mode automatically enabled when you have working Akismet.

In Kadvacorp.Com there are 20,277 spam comments have been automaticly blocked by Conditional CAPTCHA.

 WordPress URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-conditional-captcha/

c. Stop Spammer Registrations Plugin

The Stop Spammer Registrations Plugin checks against Spam Databases to to prevent spammers from registering or making comments.It uses 15 different strategies to block spammers. Eliminates 99% of spam registrations and comments. Checks all attempts to leave spam against StopForumSpam.com, Project Honeypot, BotScout, DNSBL lists such as Spamhaus.org, known spammer hosts such as Ubiquity Servers, disposable email addresses, very long email address and names, and HTTP_ACCEPT header.

Stop Spammer Registrations has prevented 8. lack spammers from registering or leaving comments on Kadvacorp.Com.

WordPress URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stop-spammer-registrations-plugin/

d. Comment E-Mail Verification

This plugin works on the traditional method of Confirmation via Emails. When a user posts a comment, it sends a Verification mail. Once the user verifies the comment by hitting the verification link in the mail, his comment is approved & posted.

WordPress URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-email-verify/

e. Math Comment Spam Protection

It is another simple anti spam plugin.This plugin is built keeping that thing in mind. Once it is activated, it displays small maths problems. Eg : 5+8 = ?.

It creates a Custom Comment Field just below the URL field. You’ve to just fill the answer in that input field.

WordPress URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/math-comment-spam-protection/

Almost all the above Anti Spam WordPress Plugins are Compatible with WordPress 3.1. Choose the best one of the above for your blog.

WordPress Comment SPAM

Have I forgotten an Important & Useful Anti-Spam Plugin ? Are you using any of these plugins or just satisfied with Akismet ??

1 Comment

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