WordPress spam comments are definitely annoying, but easily avoidable with an anti-spam plugin.
While the Akismet plugin is by far the most popular anti-spam plugin with over 5 million active installs, we’re going to be installing a plugin called Anti-spam. Akismet has been known to slow down WordPress website by consuming high amounts of CPU. Since I want to help you build a fast, secure website, let’s look at installing the Anti-spam WordPress plugin.
Block WordPress Spam Comments
Blocking WordPress spam comments is literally as easy as installing a plugin. After doing so, every time someone leaves a comment, the plugin will determine if the comment looks like spam and automatically mark it as such.
But before we install Anti-spam, let’s uninstall the default anti-spam WordPress plugin Akismet.
Remove Akismet
From your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins then Installed Plugins.
In your plugins list, you may have the Akismet WordPress plugin already installed. If so, you are going to want to remove it since having two anti spam WordPress plugins installed simultaneously isn’t a good idea. As a reminder, Akismet has been known to slow down WordPress websites by consuming high amounts of CPU, so we are going to opt for an alternative plugin.
To remove Akismet, simply click on the Delete link next to Akismet.
At this point, you may also want to remove the Hello Dolly plugin that was also preinstalled with WordPress.
Install the Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin
From your WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins then Add New. In the plugins search box, type in anti spam.
You’ll see a bunch of spam plugins, but we’re intersted in the one by webvitaly.
Click on Install Now. After a few seconds, click the blue Activate button. That will take you to your WordPress plugins page.
While there isn’t a link to the Anti-spam settings on the plugin page, you can access them by clicking on Settings then Anti-spam on the right side menu of your WordPress dashboard.
On the Anti-spam settings page, you’ll see just one configuration option to save spam comments into spam section. You can go ahead and click on that check box to turn that functionality on. Click on Save Changes.
Now, when you do get a spam comment, the plugin will mark it as spam. In addition, the plugin will never publish any spam comment on your website. Rest assured that all spam comments are hidden and never visible to visitors on your website.
UP NEXT: Add Google Search Console to WordPress
Now that you are automatically blocking spam comments with a plugin, let’s integrate Google Search Console into your WordPress website.
Don’t worry if you aren’t familiar with Google Search Console or its many benefits in regards to monitoring organic search traffic. In the next part of this WordPress tutorial series, we’ll be adding your WordPress website to Google Search Console and discussing why every blogger and website owner should do this.
As always, if you have any questions about blocking spam comments on WordPress, let me know in the comments below. I’ll be more than happy to help you out.
