Tips to Prevent Comment Spam
The easiest way to prevent comment spam is to limit the links that are allowed in your comment fields. This will discourage spammers and ensure that only genuine visitors can leave comments. You should also remove the website field, which attracts spammers of all kinds. Plugins and simple code can help prevent this. But remember that banning links can cause problems for legitimate users as well. For this reason, we will only discuss a few simple tips to prevent comment spam.
The first tip is to limit the number of links in comments. While you may be able to disable this field for a single post, many people abuse this feature. The most important way to prevent comment spam is to set the number of links to one or two and not to allow any other links. Then, you can turn off comments for individual posts. Most blogging software allows you to turn off comments for individual posts. If you don’t want to turn off comments entirely, use the Disable Link Field plugin.
Another way to prevent comment spam is to use a blacklist. This will prevent spammers from posting comments that contain certain words. For example, if your site is using WordPress, you can use Akismet to filter all comments. It will filter spam comments and will block the ones that aren’t related to your site. Another tip is to remove trackbacks and empty the trash regularly. These are just a few simple ways to protect your site against comment spam.
You should also manually approve comments. It is easy to detect comment spam when it uses bots, but manually checking every comment is very time-consuming and unpractical for larger sites. If you have the time, you can even use a CAPTCHA plugin to add the spam test to all comments. But these two methods won’t do much. You can use them to prevent comment spam on your site, but if you want to make sure that only legitimate ones are published, you can implement them manually.
While you can’t completely stop comment spam from entering your website, you can prevent it from appearing on your site. In addition to these simple tips, you should also consider the use of a filter plugin. This plugin will allow you to set a time limit for each comment, and this will prevent spammers from entering your website. The more spam you filter out, the better it will perform in search engines. It also helps you keep track of the number of comments on your website, so your readers will be less likely to comment on your site.
Lastly, check for spam comments by checking for blacklists. This will prevent the spammers from leaving links in your comments. You can also limit the links you allow in your comment section. Too many links will be considered spam, and it will lower your website’s ranking in the search engines. You can also manually approve comments, which will prevent spam bots from attacking your site. It is essential to ensure that your blog gets the best possible ranking in search engines by making sure that your comment section is able to attract only legitimate visitors.
Lastly, always remember that comment spam is a part of poor SEO strategy. Spammers use keywords to rank their websites. They also don’t use common language. Spammers target popular blogs that have low spam protection or auto-approval of all comments. For this reason, it’s best to avoid comment spam. If the commenter is associated with a company, it’s most likely trying to place a link to their website.
Lastly, make sure to enable guest commenting. This is crucial for small sites, as disabling this feature may discourage legitimate commenters. You can also prevent comment spammers from leaving links on your site by closing comments. Alternatively, you can turn off guest commenting on your site. There are also some plugins available that can help you block spammers. But, these features will require some time to monitor. You should also check whether or not the plugin you’re using will allow comment moderation.
Make sure that you check input validation before publishing forms. Moreover, you can also limit the types of files users can upload in a comment field. And, if you’re using a contact form, you should include a CAPTCHA or a verification question. If you’re using Contact Form 7, consider installing a honeypot plugin. Ensure that you have a double opt-in option for users. By disabling comments, you will eliminate spam.