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Reduce spam comments on your WordPress website

Definitions

When you reduce spam comments on your WordPress website, you put in place settings to block or filter unwanted, irrelevant comments on your website.

Before you start

✅ Using a plugin is the best way to mitigate and reduce spam comments on your WordPress website.

ℹ️ Although it’s nearly impossible to avoid all spam comments on your WordPress website, you can effectively reduce them.

Step by step

In this guide, you’ll learn how to use the Akismet plugin to block and reduce spam comments on your WordPress website. Follow these steps to keep your comments section clean and manageable.

1. Open this guide: Manage your WordPress plugins

2. In that guide, go to the ‘Add a plugin‘ section and activate the Akismet plugin

3. Once Akismet is activated on your WordPress website, navigate to Plugins > Installed Plugins

4. Find Akismet Anti-Spam in the list and click on Settings under its name

5. Connect your Akismet account:

  • If you don’t have an Akismet API key, click on Get your API key. This will take you to the Akismet website where you can sign up for an API key.
  • If you already have an API key, enter it in the provided field and click Connect with API key.

6. Adjust Akismet settings – Once connected, you’ll see a series of settings that you can adjust:

  • Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month: Enable this to reduce the number of spam comments you have to manually review.
  • Show the number of approved comments beside each comment author: This can help you quickly see which commenters are regularly approved and which might be spammers.
  • Strictness settings: Choose whether to display the comment for moderation or outright discard the spam. For most users, setting it to discard the spam comments is preferable.

7. Review and save changes:

  • After adjusting the settings to your preference, click on Save Changes to apply the new configurations.

8. Regularly monitor the spam folder:

  • Occasionally check your Comments > Spam folder to ensure no legitimate comments are being marked as spam.
  • If you find legitimate comments in the spam folder, mark them as Not Spam to help Akismet learn and improve.

9. Keep Akismet updated:

  • Make sure the Akismet plugin stays updated to the latest version to benefit from the most recent spam-fighting enhancements and security fixes.