In this article, we will talk about a very
urgent problem, which sooner or later every webmaster faces. It is called
"comment spam." Comment spam is a thing that needs to be dealt with as soon as
you create your website. If you don't protect yourself from spam in time, it
will lead to disastrous consequences.
What consequences you can expect
First of all, the main threat is getting
search sanctions. This can happen because of spam bots that will try to post
something with the help of comments in order to get backward links. And links
can lead to any dubious sites, including the adult website. Such links can ruin
almost any website easily and in a short time. Moreover, spam can spread a
variety of malicious codes, and sometimes even viruses. Therefore, it is recommended
to use Cleantalk
plugin for spam protection of websites.
The sooner you understand this problem and
install antispam protection on your WordPress blog, the faster you will save
yourself from unnecessary headaches.
It is worth noting another essential nuance.
Many people mistakenly believe that only popular resources need protection from
spam. However, it doesn't matter for spam bots how popular your website/blog
is. They only need your website to be indexed in search engines. Therefore, as
soon as your website is indexed, spam bots will immediately become interested
in it and start spamming it with comments.
The spread of spam can be done in 2 ways:
- manually
- automatically.
Manual spam is inherently harmless because its
sizes are not very large, so you can easily cope with it using the so-called
one-time or full moderation of all comments left, which can be enabled in the
discussion settings in WordPress.
However, for auto spam, the volumes of which
can be around 100+ spam comments per day, this method of struggle will not
work. It is possible to go over and check all comments for span, but why should
someone waste his or her time on it? The best way to protect yourself from this
kind of spam is by using full automaton plugins.
Antispam service
Cleantalk
The main features of Cleantalk:
- There are no such ways of checking
comments as introducing verification phrases, composing or selecting correct
pictures, introducing a response to mathematical equations, etc. It has been
experimentally proved that all such methods of spam filtering do their job, but
reduce the total number of comments on the site, since visitors are lazy to
solve puzzles, enter words from a picture, etc. But the presence of comments on
the publication is an essential factor in its search promotion!
- The service uses both constantly
updated blacklists and behavioral factors of visitors, which makes it possible
to filter comments better. And all this is invisible to visitors!
- The service is able to protect all
forms at once: comments, feedback, reviews.