29 Mar 6 Best Anti Spam Blocking Plugins to Protect your WordPress Comments
Spam Spam Spam..!! They are everywhere. Even at WordPress. Annoying, huh?
Well, it won’t be that annoying anymore since you made a right call. No matter how much traffic your WordPress blog is getting, it is well capable of attracting hundreds of spam comments every month, or maybe in a week or in a day (if the blog is extremely popular).
Now discussion section can’t be closed because it will hurt user experience as you’re taking away their right to share open views. So what’s the solution left? Anti-Spam plugins, perfect!
Like he said (Matt Mullenweg), “Technology is best when it brings people together”, so you need to make sure that yours one counts among such websites that allow their readers to interact and discuss.
He had himself developed a solution for breaking the spam flow by implementing a powerful filter (I’ll get to it shortly). And there are many other solutions as well.
I’ll list a compilation of best anti-spam plugins to know out each and every spam comments on your blog. Since its WordPress and we are doing it through plugin way, so you can expect the solution to work on automation with minimum attention requirement.
Table of Contents
Which is the Best Anti Spam Plugins for WordPress?
Let’s began! I’m adding the best solution I found which are regularly updated and also made compatible with every latest and best version of WordPress coming out.
#1 Akismet
Sign up for a WordPress.com account, select an Akismet plan, get an API key to activate your subscription and relax. This is how easily you can setup this plugin, which comes pre-installed on every fresh WordPress installation. It is developed and managed by owner company of WordPress, and I was talking about it earlier, remember?
If the blog run by you is for personal usage i.e. you’re an individual then you don’t need to pay anything for Akismet or for any of its services. While for business usage, it comes with a price tag. So just like WordPress platform, Akismet is available without any pricing i.e. like an open-source.
Out of many reviews I went with my research and also after using it for years, I can recommend this plugin to anyone. In fact, everyone recommends it to everyone. It simply works automatically and never bothers. You can off course check statistics related to a number of spams that arrived which were blocked. Try it out!
#2 Antispam Bee
It first arrived to stop trackback and pingback spams and then evolved into a complete anti-spam solution. The plugin is recommended by Matt Mullenweg himself which is a good sign to start with. I’ve been using this personally on few of my test blogs, and so I can firmly speak on behalf of this plugin that it is always updated. You can always find it staying compatible with every fresh version of WordPress script.
With over millions of active installs, you can feel safe using it. It is compatible with Disqus, Jetpack comments and any AJAX powered comment system, which is a crucial feature. Also, it is available in few popular foreign languages. You should give it a try if you’re looking for the best alternative to Akismet.
#3 Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin
To be honest, I used it in starting days of my blogging but later I lost interest in it. This is because the developers were not so fast in bringing updates to the native script, earlier. Now I found it upgraded again, so it stays recommendable. I can still trust this plugin because it uses a very simple mechanism to prevent all spams targeted by robots or algorithms.
It simply adds a single checkbox, together with the comment form. Now if a reader is interested in leaving a comment, then he/she has to enable that little checkbox. You can set any message of your kind like ‘check if you’re Human’. It does work great. But when it comes to stopping human operated spamming, its mechanism fells. You can use it if you are looking for very light weight option.
#4 WP-SpamShield Anti-Spam
This plugin uses two types of layers, JavaScript/Cookies layer, and Algorithmic layer. Both of them are targeted to filter out each and every spammer (whether it is a bot or human itself). They are allowed to add a comment to your blog or website, but if it matches spam checklists, then that comment never reaches your inbox.
It works in the background and adds no clue on the webpage for readers or bots to identify its presence, which is somewhat a cool feature. The feature which makes it a different solution is that it completely stops the spam comments from reaching the WordPress database. So you are never going to saw any of them in the future. It does use very specific and powerful algorithms to dig out each and every spam and thus keep your blog safe.
2018 UPDATE: WP-SpamShield is no longer hosted on the WordPress.org plugin directory and is now a premium plugin — hosted on CodeCanyon.
#5 WordPress Zero Spam
Now, this is an alternative option to above one. If you didn’t like above one due to any reason, you could go with WordPress Zero Spam named plugin. You don’t need to pay anything for it, and it functions somewhat like the above one. You’re never bothered by checking out any spam, and there is no usage of captcha at all. Also, it does come supportable with almost every well-coded WordPress theme.
#6 Anti-spam by CleanTalk
Spam can reach your blog not just from comments but from anywhere. It can arrive at registrations forms, contact emails, orders, bookings, widgets and even from subscriptions. If this particular fact concerns you, then this last recommend plugin from my side can be helpful. Try it out!
Conclusion
I hope you had a sigh of relief or will have in near future. If that’s the case, then you can appreciate our efforts by sharing this compilation over social networks, which will also help other WordPress Webmasters, indeed. Peace.
No Comments