Is your WordPress blog getting too much spam?
Do you want to free up the time it takes you to filter through spam looking for genuine comments?
Turn this setting on now.
- On your blog’s dashboard, go to Jetpack – Akismet Anti-spam.
- On the page that opens, look for the Settings box. Under Spam Filtering, ensure ‘Silently discard the worst and most pervasive spam so I never see it’ is selected.
- Click the ‘Save changes‘ button.
You’ll now see much less spam in your blog’s spam folder.
Obviously, you can continue to review all spam, but this can be very time-consuming if your blog gets a lot of spam.
On average, I now see less than 10 spam comments per week in my spam folder. It used to be hundreds. Turning this setting on has helped.
On the same page, you can also see how much good work the Akismet anti-spam software has done in capturing spam comments on your blog. Here’s a snapshot of my blog.
Akismet has caught over 308,000 spam comments since I started blogging in February 2014!
Occasionally, spam comments will get through, but you can help WordPress by marking them as spam. Likewise, if a genuine comment ends up in the spam folder by mistake, mark it as ‘not spam.’
Something else you may find interesting is that WordPress now deletes spam that is over 15 days old in the spam folder, so you no longer have to do it! Another win! Thank you, WordPress.
Don’t stress about spam!
I’ve come across some bloggers who allow spam to stress them. This does nothing but spoil the enjoyment blogging brings.
If your blog receives too much spam, turn on the setting outlined in this post. You’ll soon see a vast decrease in the amount of spam you see.
How do you deal with spam on your blog?
Layout, content, settings, and format might differ on self-hosted blogs.
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WordPress made some changes to their spam filters several months ago, and I get very little spam not.
They did, but this new setting seems to reduce the number further. It’s certainly worked for me.
Good to know!
Thanks for the tip, Hugh. I just went through the steps. I also get hundreds on spam and hope that goes down now. Have an awesome spam-free day.
I hope you see a vast reduction in spam WordPress now shows you, Diana. I’ve seen a considerable drop. I now see around five items of spam every week, although I do sometimes scratch my head as to why they’re still showing the ones I see when they’re clearly spam.
I used to get so many it was impossible to see if there were any real comments in the mix. I’m looking forward to the fix!
I don’t get a huge number of spam comments but every now and then there’s an annoying flurry. I’ve turned this on so hopefully that will reduce – thank you for the tip :)
I hope you start to see a reduction in the amount of spam you see now that you’ve turned the settings on, Sarah. It’s certainly helped me.
Thanks Hugh. Another worthy tip I’ll be sharing in November. :)
You’re welcome, Debby. And thank you for the upcoming share.
My pleasure always Hugh. :)
Thank you for this very valuable tip, Hugh. I just changed my settings to reflect this change. I don’t get a lot of spam but hopefully, with this change, I’ll get even less.
I hope you see much less spam after changing this setting, Eugi.
I hope so too, Hugh.
I have always used it. As you say it doesn’t eliminate all spam though certainly reduces it. The most annoying of spammers are the ones that “like” a stream of posts all at once. Not sure how WP can stop that process?
Yes, I agree about those serial likers. WordPress may deal with them one day. I have suggested to WordPress that the ‘like’ button only appear on a post after a minute of it being open. That would certainly get rid of many of the serial likers.
Though they’re sneaky and do it months or even years later. Oh well, lets hope that some quick IT person can find a solution to all spammers.
I don’t get a lot of spam comments—probably about 2 or 3 a day. I generally just roll my eyes and mark them as spam.
Is Askimet or your anti-spam software not identifying those comments as spam? However, you do well by marking them as spam so the software can learn.
No, these are ones that slip through. They’re usually comments like “Nice post” with a link to a random blog.
That’s a great setting to have on for spam.
I still find it a bit tricky to deal with spammers, since I have 1 or 2 people that follows the blog and sometimes leaves comments, but I have no idea if it’s spam or if they’re just technically incompetent.
I’ve mentioned on my policy page and right before the comment section on each post that too short comments will be marked as spam, yet these people continue to leave really short comments.
I’m marking them as spam until further notice but they don’t seem to get the message, and I never get a reply from them either, so this is also a reason to why they keep getting marked as spam, even though they might not be.
Spambots tend to keep leaving the same comments, so they could be spambots. I visit the blog link if I’m unsure if a comment is genuine. I often get a message that the blog is under construction or unavailable, which is a red flag for me, and I mark the comment as spam. If they keep leaving the same short comments, that tells me there’s no guarantee they’ve even read the post, and they’re just trying to get noticed. I mark those comments as spam. Eventually, WordPress gets the idea and sends further comments from those bloggers to my spam folder.
Great info! Thanks
Great suggestion, Hugh. I spent twenty minutes already to try and activate this button, but I’m not finding it. So, either it’s not offered for self-hosted blogs, or you paid for the Akismet anti-spam feature before. All I find is an option to pay a subscription fee of about $5/month to prevent more spam. It would be nice if WordPress automatically deletes all the spam comments after 15 days!! I’ll keep an eye on that.
I believe there is a fee for this option on self-hosted blogs, Liesbet. However, anyone with a WordPress.com plan (even the free one) is included in the plan.
I hope any spam is deleted after 15 days in your spam folder.
Aha, that could be why I didn’t manage to change the setting. That makes sense. I did check my spam folder and thousands of them have been removed since last I checked, so I think the automatically deleting of the spam messages after 15 days rings true for everyone – self-hosted or not. I’m happy about that!
That’s good news on the spam folder front, Liesbet. No more wasting time by having to do that tedious task.
Thanks so much, Hugh. I’ve been bothered with span a lot in the past months, after never having any!
Spam is like waiting for a bus. You wait for ages, and then three arrive at the same time! I hope this helps cut the amount of spam you see.
Some is still getting through but I ignore it. Is there a way to delete it?
Yes, you can manually delete all spam. Go to your spam folder, and you’ll see a button that says ‘delete all spam’. It’ll do it in one go (unless you have hundreds of spam messages, in which case you may have to click that button a few times). If you’re using the Classic dashboard, tick the ‘select all spam’ box, then press the delete button. Any spam over 15 days old now gets deleted automatically by WordPress.
I went and checked and lo and behold, they want more money to turn on the Askimet Spam option. Ugh!
If you have a self-hosted blog, unfortunately, there is a fee. However, all WordPress.com plans include this feature at no extra cost (even the free plan).
That’s so confusing to me. I have a host that I pay, and yet I have a self-hosted site? I’m sure there are many things I could do to make my site better and more efficient if only I knew what and how.
Which company hosts your blog, Jan? It could be hosted by WordPress, but unless it’s a WordPress.com blog, it’s self-hosted. Many bloggers choose self-hosted for the freedom it gives, although some also hire an I.T expert to make any changes for them in fear of messing things up.
Bluehost is my website and blog host, Hugh. I should check through them to see if Askimet is provided as part of their hosting services.
No harm in asking them, Jan. I hope it works out.
I cut off comments on posts after 31 days and the spam stopped almost altogether
With this new option, there is no need to close comments anymore.
How many comments do you get on old posts?
That’s a great question. I can’t tell you the exact number, but many of my posts get a lot of traffic via Google (yesterday, it sent 61 visitors to my blog) and other SEO engines. Not all leave comments, but some do. Some of my posts from earlier this year still get comments, as do some from the last few years.
It also helps that I categorise and tag posts correctly so that they appear in search engine results and when people search for particular posts on WordPress. I also always take any opportunity to promote older posts (as I will do here, as you asked a great question).
Because of this, I keep comments open so visitors can continue asking questions or adding their thoughts to the discussion.
Thanks for the questions, Brian.
Thanks Hugh. As my blog is a photo blog, I rarely get comments after a week or so after posting.
There is the occasional view on past posts.
I can see why your blog would get much more traffic than mine.
I had a look and google sent 10 visitors to mine
That’s great to hear that Google is sending you traffic. SEO is a powerful blogging tool, but many bloggers don’t do enough to make it work for them and then wonder why they’re not getting views or engagement.
It is funny when I can’t ID something. Then use google image search and one of my older photos shows up 😂
There you go. It’s great when that happens. I’ve even referred to some of my older posts for help.
Thankfully I have this activated, I dread to think what the spam folder would be like otherwise.
That’s good to hear, Cathy. Likewise, I never want to go back to when I saw hundreds of spam comments in my WordPress spam folder every day.
No, absolutely not!