Semalt Expert: How To Delete Spam Comments In WordPress?

Spam comments are a major problem for webmasters and bloggers. If you have developed a WordPress blog or site, you might be familiar with this threat and might want to delete and prevent the spam comments. There is a wide range of spam comment protection and defense tools and plugins online. Some people manually delete those comments, while the others install relevant plugins or programs.

Jack Miller, a top expert from Semalt, elaborates here on some helpful tips in this regard.

Akismet Comment Spam Fighter:

As of now, Akismet is the best spam comment fighter online. Wordpress websites and blogs have it installed by default, and Akismet uses a variety of algorithms combined with the community created database to know which comments are fake and spam and which ones are legitimate. To activate Akismet on the WordPress site, you should go to the Plugins area and click on the Activate button. Once Akismet is activated, you would see that the spam comments are directed to the Comments Panel area, which means they will not show up on your blog or website. Every comment has to go through the Akismet net, and the useless information is automatically added to its community-created database.

If you don't want to use this WordPress plugin, there are a few steps that promise to prevent the large chunk from irritating you and entering the pending comments section.

1. Bulk Delete the Spam Comments:

If you have received tons of spam comments, this is time to delete all of them and prevent their arrival in future. For this, you would have to follow these simple steps:

• Install the Delete Pending Comments plugin on your WordPress site
• Go to the Comments –> Delete Pending Comments area and click on the Delete Pending Comments button
• This plugin will delete all the meaningless and useless comments in one go

2. Add the List of Comment Blacklist Keywords:

It's time to prevent the future spam comments from entering your site and irritating you:

• Open the WordPress Comment Blacklist Keywords file on your WordPress dashboard
• Copy the complete list of known and unknown spam keywords
• In your WordPress dashboard, go to the Settings –> Discussions area and paste those keywords in the Comment Blacklist area
• Save the changes before closing your window

3. Tweak the WordPress Settings:

The discussion settings of WordPress blog can be tweaked as per your requirements. You can also disable the Notifications area and get rid of the spam comments instantly.

4. Use Akismet-like Anti-Spam Plugins:

Just like Akismet, WordPress has dozens of anti-spam plugins to get benefited from. Most of those plugins are free and can help you get rid of the useless comments in no time. Make sure you have updated your plugin and replaced it with a new version because the spammers and hackers always look for new techniques and ways to spam a large number of sites. API plugin works exactly like Akismet and can be installed from the Plugin Directory area.

Conclusion – You are done:

Installing a plugin is not too tough, and a lot of people love the way Akismet deals with spam comments. Plus, this plugin is lightweight, offers lots of features, and is free to use.