Spam Comments – Is Your Refrigerator Running?

Does Your Blog Suffer From Spam Comments?

Reader comments can be an important part of blogging or online selling but, unfortunately, they are abused to such an extent as to become almost useless -- or at least so annoying that any benefit is over-shadowed by the frustration, as you may well have experienced.

There are many reasons for people making spam comments ranging from misunderstood and misdirected attempts to gain SEO value to simple prankster activity akin to the bored teenager making prank phone calls, "Is your refrigerator running?"

Because comments are such an integral part of blogging, and because WordPress is historically a blogging platform, the comment system is integral to core files and cannot simply be removed or fully turned off. Even the control over commenting, especially as it relates to preventing spam comments, is limited. You can find what control there is in:

Dashboard --> Settings --> Discussion

If you have turned off everything that can be turned off, including notifications, you should not get any further emails about spam comments but you may not actually prevent them from being placed on your site.

Akismet (A-Kiz-Met) is a plugin distributed with the core WordPress installation package and is extremely helpful in controlling spam comments. You should active (or reinstall if you have deleted) Akismet and make use of its features. It is one of the best plugins available for this purpose. The control panel for Akismet is found through the Settings link on the Akismet entry on your site plugins page.

Dashboard --> Plugins

Additionally look for the plugin Comment Control to add additional control to comments that the internal core "Discussion" control does not offer. Use this plugin to turn off comment posting in all new posts, pages, and product listings (if you are using an e-commerce plugin), as well as to go back through all your listings (automatically!) to turn off the "allow comments" feature, if set, on existing listings.

You can find the control page for the plugin here:

Dashboard --> Settings --> Comment Control

This process should effectively remove the bother of spam comments, and their email notifications, however it will not guarantee NOT getting any now comments. The mechanism that allows comments to occur can be directly accessed from outside your website control panel and some spammers know how to exploit this.

Any such comments added will not be seen on the pages/posts/products listing on your site, nor should they send you bothersome emails. Most of these will be automatically deleted by Akismet (the spam control plugin) if you have configured it appropriately.

Now, all you will have to do is keep an eye on the comments section in your dashboard, and watch for the number beside the comment menu item, located here:

Dashboard --> Comments

to build to a level that makes you think you should do something about it, say 20 to 50 or greater perhaps, and go into that section and delete them. You shouldn't be bothered with emails at all.