Stop Comment Spam from WordPress Blog Completely

WordPress comments spam is a big problem, but how can we stop, ban, block spam comments before they hit our WordPress blogs. There are many ways you can block, ban spammers from your blog. WordPress has got many plugins for this as well. Spammers hit blog using auto bot softwares and spam comments inwhich they through a lot of spammy URLs, links, irrelevant text. If you are able to block spam, you can significantly save bandwidth and do more instead of deleting all the spam you get accumulated daily in your moderation queue. Here are possible ways to block and combating spam.

Block Spammers Using .htacces File

You can collect frequent spammers IP and put them in .htaccess file to block them. Below is an example of the .htaccess code that can block the specified IP addresses from viewing the blog with support of wild card.

order allow,deny
deny from 123.123.123.123
deny from 156.156.156.*
deny from 189.189.*.*
allow from all

Deny Access to No Referrer Requests

When your readers comment, the wp-comments-post.php file is accessed, does its thing, and creates the post. The user's browser will send a "referral" line about this. When a spam-bot comes in, it hits the file directly and usually does not leave a referrer. This allows for some nifty detection and action direct from the server. If you are not familiar with Apache directives, then write the following in your root directory .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*yourdomain.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]

This will:

• Detects when a POST is being made
• Check to see if the post is on wp-comments-post.php
• Check if the referrer is in your domain or if no referrer
• Send the spam-bot BACK to its originating server's IP address

Using PHP Code to Block

You can add this to the top of any PHP page, putting the actual IP address where the xxx or yyy are the IP to block.

<?php
$block = array("xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx", "yy.yy.y.yyy");
 
if (in_array ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], $block)) {
    header("Location: http://google.com/");
    exit();
}
?>

Akismet WordPress Plugin

This plugin is very useful which scans every comment and extract possible spam and move them in separate group called spam. This plugin has been very much useful and a good solution for comment spam.

WordPress Comments Moderation

If you navigate to the WordPress Admin > Settings > Discussion, you will find comments settings there:

Comment Moderation will hold a comment in the queue if its not appropriate or it contains more than 2 links. Check moderation option for that.

WordPress Comments Blacklist

When a comment contains any of specified words in its content, name, URL, e-mail, or IP, it will be marked as spam. You will have to specify keyword or IP per line for that. Block IP addresses via the blacklist, it will move all such comments to the spam queue.

But that still means work for bloggers to screen for valid comments (unless you prefer to click "Delete all Spam", which will also delete any useful comments, and invite query from readers as to why you deleted their comments). Of course you can edit your .htaccess file to block some IPs, but how many times can you keep doing that manually?

Ban Spammers IP

Use WP-Ban, a very powerful WordPress plugin which helps you easily ban users by IP, IP Range, host name and referrer url from visiting your WordPress’s blog and prevent spam from ever reaching your comments. It will display a custom ban message when the banned IP, IP range, host name or referrer url tries to visit your blog. The Ban Stats can reveal valuable info about spam attempts and IP ban.

Go to WP-Ban

Caution: Do not block your own IP. Do not use wild cards to block a large number of IPs or domains carelessly or you could be blocking thousands of your own readers and search engine bots. If you simply block the IPs which occur too frequently in your spam comments, ban those IPs and see your spam reduce in minutes.

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