04 Mar 6 Free Alternatives to Akismet Anti-Spam Prevention
Spam comments are one of the most common problems that WordPress users come across every other day. These can affect the user experience of your site as well as the SEO. Countering the problem can take effort such as manually going over the discussion settings as well as a good plugin. While going over each comment and filtering spam comments can be time-consuming and sometimes confusing as well. If you do not that kind of time or you wish to invest that precious time in your business, there are a number of WordPress plugins that can help you with spam comments. Keep reading to learn more about Free Alternatives to Akismet.
Have you been using WordPress for a long duration? If yes, then you are already familiar with the notion that comment spam is a real problem. Besides adversely affecting your user experience, it can also negatively affect your website’s SEO including the fact that it can make your blogs become home to many spammy links from untrustworthy websites.
Although dealing with comment spam is not erroneous, it is important for you to make sure that you deal with it the right way possible. Letting this build-up is not good for you, especially if you want your website to become successful. Furthermore, it is also very easy for you to moderate all the comments, but in case your website becomes popular then you should expect to spend more time moderating. Luckily, we offer WordPress plugins that can help with this in regards to Free Alternatives to Akismet.
Essentially, Akismet is without a doubt one of the most popular spam prevention plugins for WordPress. This shouldn’t come as a surprise considering this plugin is designed by the same company that created Automattic. With over 13 million downloads, you can rest assured that this is a great plugin.
That’s where Akismet comes into the picture, it is one of the most widely used anti-spam plugins with over 19 million downloads and a rating of over 4.5. Akismet has been created by none other than Automattic, the company behind WordPress. No wonder, it is a solid plugin and the best anti-spam plugin in the WordPress repository. You need to sign up for Akismet and activate the plugin with their API key. All the comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks pass through their antispam algorithms and the spam comments are then pushed into the spam queue.
Akismet is free only for personal use, individual blogs, or for a non-profit website, for the rest of the websites such as businesses and non-profits the monthly subscription plans start at $5/mo. While it is not much investment, but you can always opt for free Free Alternatives to Akismet that are just as good. If you’re looking for free alternatives to Akismet, this article is for you. I have rounded up a list of 6 free alternatives to Akismet anti-spam prevention.
Antispam
Antispam is one of the popular anti-spam plugins, it is a great free alternatives to Akismet with over a million downloads and a rating of 4.8. The plugins removes the need for Captchas as the makers believe that it is not a user’s problem and rightly so. The plugin removes the spam comments automatically without the need for administrators to intervene, you’ll get rid of any comment moderation. The plugin uses code to trap spam bots and moves the comment to spam. The plugin is quite easy to use and does a wonderful job.
Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is developed by Sergej Muller, the plugin blocks any spam comments, pingbacks and trackbacks and doesn’t require captcha. Also, it is a great free alternative to Akismet with over a million downloads . The plugin is entirely free and doesn’t include any ads and unlike Akismet it doesn’t require registration or save your personal data on the site as well. The plugin uses techniques to block spam, it validates the IP address of commentors, displays monthly statistics on the dashboard, trusts commentors with Gravatars, clears spam comments after a specified number of days and much more.
Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin
Growmap Anti Spambot (G.A.S.P) is a free plugin developed by Andy Bailey, the plugin generates a client side checkbox to your contact form for users to confirm that they are genuine. The plugin doesn’t require captcha and the box is generated via client side javascript that cannot be seen by bots. The plugin will be able to stop 99% of the automated spam bots with this kind of mechanism. The plugin also has a smart technique to combat the new learning bots, with each comment forms it adds a dynamically named field and value so that it can only be filled by human users. You can also limit the number of comments from a user to keep a check on spammers trying to post to your site.
Stop Spammers Spam Prevention
Stop Spammers Spam Prevention is a great option for spam prevention of your website. Not only the plugin stops unnecessary spam comments, but it also limits login attempts. The plugin performs 20 distinct checks for spams and other malicious events. The plugin comes with various pages of configuration option to choose the options according to your need. This aggressive plugin uses a mix of Akismet and its own API to prevent spams. If a spam is detected, the plugin allows the user to submit a comment via a denied request page. Then the user is presented with a captcha screen either from OpenCaptcha, Google reCaptcha or SolveMedia Captcha to prevent them from getting blocked.
WP SpamShield Anti-Spam
WP SpamShield Anti-Spam is a powerful plugin that has two layers of anti-spam protection to detect and block human spam as well as the spambots. The plugin detects and handles various kinds of spam such as comment spam, contact form spam, registration spam and trackback spam. The plugin has a strong mechanism to track spammers, it works like a firewall to ensure that you get comments from genuine users. The plugin silently takes care of all your spam woes without letting your users know about the plugin. It doesn’t use any captcha and the best part of this plugins is that it doesn’t allow spam to enter your WordPress database, it totally blocks any spam. This will save a lot of your time that you would have spent going over your spam queue. It is a great plugin and helps you improve your wesite performance by keeping your database slimmer and won’t slow down your site.
WordPress Zero Spam
WordPress Zero Spam is a plugin based on the work by David Walsh, the plugin is easy to set up and it blocks spam in comments automatically. The plugin utilizes server and client side javascript key validation to block spambots. The plugin supports caching plugins and it doesn’t require captcha as well. The plugin is compatible with plugins like Gravity Form, Contact Form 7, Ninja Forms and BuddyPress.
Free Alternatives to Akismet Summary
We have covered a lot of alternatives to Akismet in this post and hope you find the article useful. Let us know of any anti-spam plugin that we haven’t covered and you think it deserves a mention in this list. Share your experience with us if you use one of these plugins or any other that you found useful. Feel free to share your feedback and suggestions in the comment section below. Also, if you like the article, like and share it in your social circles.
Akismet is a smart way to deal with comment spam on your website. It helps in monitoring each comment, pingback, and trackback your website receives and tests to ensure they are not spammy. If the plugin suspects that any of the comments are spam, you won’t have to approve it before it is launched on your website.
Akismet depends on the input of different users with over 7 years of work to ensure it’s the best when it comes to spam protection. The good news is that it also becomes intelligent by learning more about new methods and tricks used by spammers. We strongly hope that these great free alternatives to Akismet will be of help to you.
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