Are you also wondering how to prevent spam in your comments? Of course, there are plugins that do the whole thing for you. However, with every plugin you install on your site on the one hand the performance of your website and on the other hand you need to check your plugins regularly for updates to ensure that your WordPress website has as few security vulnerabilities as possible.
Limit spam without plugin #
WordPress already offers you some options to avoid unwanted spam. To do this, log in to your administration interface as usual and then switch to the following section:
- General settings
- Discussions
There you can enter a set of words in the comment blocking list that will automatically mark the comment as spam and disable it.
Automatically moderate comments with links. #
Spam usually contains many links to external sites in order to infect the visitor with viruses or intercept data. Therefore, WordPress also offers to search posts for links. Above a certain amount, which can also be defined via the settings in the administration interface, they are then automatically deactivated and queued for verification. This provides additional safety.
Blacklist for WordPress #
Of course, you don’t always have to reinvent a blacklist, so it’s a good idea to draw on existing resources and simply extend existing blacklists with your own words. Of course, you should not simply copy individual lists, but also check them to ensure that you do not accidentally block terms that are relevant to you and your users.
But where do you find the terms for your own blacklists?
Grant Hutchinson provides a detailed list of words on his GitHub. You can also use the direct link to the Blacklist.txt (currently over 41,000 entries).
Did this post help you? How do you deal with spam? Just drop us a comment and let us know what you think.
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