Author: CleanTalk Team

There are many open-source content management systems out there. However, WordPress has proved to be the darling for many users, whether creating blogs or websites. To put this into perspective, according to W3Techs, WordPress powers over 40% of all the sites on the internet. However, this percentage could be higher if not for one demon that keeps on haunting the WordPress platform – spam comments!

Yes, it is pretty frustrating for most users when dealing with spam that never seems to go away. So, if you have to use WordPress effectively, you will have to devise approaches to dealing with WordPress comment spam.

Luckily, you are not left in the wild, and with the proper knowledge on how to use plugins, implement settings, and some tricks, you can minimize your spam by 99%. Yes, these are tested techniques that will enable you to reduce spam significantly. Since dealing with spam is an energy and time-consuming undertaking, opting for these approaches will give you more time to focus on growing your blog.

Large volumes of spam comments can affect your website significantly. It can harm your ranking on search engines, keep off some legitimate commenters who would otherwise provide valuable comments to your blogs, and have security implications. As such, any efforts to stop comment spam are absolutely worth it. But the big question remains; how do you stop WordPress spam comments?

Table of contents:

• What Is a Comment Spam?
• Is It Worth Dealing With Comment Spam In WordPress?
• Turn on Comment Moderation in WordPress
• Minimize the Number of Links Allowed Per Comment
• Create a List of ‘Blacklisted’ Words
• Hide the Website URL Field from the Comment Form
• Restrict Comment Privileges to Registered Users
• Disable Comments on Media Attachment
• Disable HTML in Comments
• Set Maximum and Minimum Comment Length
• Disable Trackbacks in WordPress
• Disable Comments on Old Posts
• Switch off Comments
• Disable Comments for Individual Posts
• WordPress Plugin to Stop Spam Email
• Turn off Anonymous Comments
• Try Third-Party Comments
• Why are Comment Spam Bots Targeting Your Website?
• Checklist for Identifying WordPress Spam Comments

What Is a Comment Spam?

Blog spam is easily recognized by its unique generic content. If we were to categorize it, we would put it in the same family of so familiar email spam. However, it has a unique purpose – to obtain backlinks. Whether through a trackback, comment, or pingback, blog spam aims to get a link published on your website that redirects users to another potentially malicious website.

The spam-redirect website is often not related to your niche and, in most cases, of inferior quality.

When you allow users to comment on your site, you increase the chances of getting spammer comments. Over time, as your website gets established, the spam becomes more problematic to deal with. Most spam is automated and posted by bots that utilize uncanny methods to send short, generic messages as a cover-up for links.

Whether human or bot-generated, comment spams are a real problem because:

• When spam comments bombard the comment section, it is challenging for genuine users to contribute to your website.
• Spam comments make your website appear unprofessional.
• Many of the links in spam comments direct users to malicious sites, or sometimes they may trick them into giving away personal information.

Is It Worth Dealing With Comment Spam In WordPress?

A straightforward answer to this question is YES. You need to stop spam comments if you want to grow your website or blog online. Nowadays, the internet has become a playground for spambots that are automated to send links on behalf of disreputable sites in the form of comment spam. What these comments seek to achieve is that such nefarious websites will get a better ranking in search engines, and gullible users may click on them accidentally.

However, bots are not exclusively used to spam websites. Actual human distributes some spam. In their basic form, these human spam comments are incoherently framed and are harder to recognize, and in most cases, have links that redirect you to nefarious third-party websites.

If you do not keep an eye on your site, these spam comments are published and become visible to search engines and your actual followers, significantly distorting your hard-earned reputation. Visitors will see your site as a spam site or a low-quality website.

That is not all. Your website could be flagged as a dangerous site by search engines if the links contained in those spam comments are found to redirect online users to sites that distribute viruses and malware.

Now you know why you should stop comment spam. Let’s dive into the essential part of this article and learn ways to stop comments from spammers so that you can spend most of your time and energy growing your website.

Turn on Comment Moderation in WordPress

Let’s ensure that any comment that is published on your website gets your approval. This is a great stride to ensure that all comments pass through the filters you have set up. This is only the sure-fire way to take full control of your site and decide on what appears and does not on your site. This is a great solution, especially if you run a business-related website such as human resources, accounting, or a law firm.

To turn on comment moderation in WordPress, go to Settings>Discussion section in the WordPress admin area. On the discussion page, there are three sections. Choose the second section, which says, “Before a comment appears,” and select the box near “Comment must be manually approved.”

At the bottom, select “Save Changes,” which pops up to store the settings you have made.

After implementing these changes, all the comments left by the commenters will be put on hold for moderation until you approve them to be published on your site.

Due to the high volume of comments on your website, going through them manually can be time-consuming and strenuous. Well, you do not have to go through all the comments (genuine and spam); some tips can help you throw away spam and only deal with legitimate ones.

Minimize the Number of Links Allowed Per Comment

We noted earlier that most spam comments contain malicious links that redirect unsuspecting users to other nefarious websites when they click on them. As such, one effective way to stop spam is dealing with the way it is spread, and in this case, you have to limit links in comments. This setting will apply to all the visitors, including the genuine ones, but it is pretty effective in dealing with spammers and, therefore, a worthwhile undertaking.

To set this feature, proceed to the WordPress dashboard and then to Discussion. You will see the Comment Moderation section.

Here, you can set the number of links allowed in a post to be eligible for moderation. This means that if you set the number to zero, all comments with a link will be held for moderation. In the screenshot, all the comments containing two or more links will be flagged for moderation.

Note that spammers are aware of this setup in WordPress and leave malicious links in the website field in the comment form. On the comment page, these links are usually in the form of a username.

Create a List of ‘Blacklisted’ Words

You can quickly identify keywords in spam comments because most spam comments use familiar words. Therefore, you can flag and prevent them from being published on your website when you recognize them. One of the most effective ways is by setting up a “blacklist” of words.

To set it, open the WordPress dashboard and go to Settings> Discussion. You will see the Comment Blacklist section:

In the comment blacklist blank space, you can type the list of words you want to blacklist. If the words listed here are spotted in commenters’ comments, they will be automatically sent to the Trash.

The process of looking for and adding the words commonly used by spammers can be time-consuming.  CleanTalk Anti-Spam has its own dictionary of words and it can be updated in the service control panel.

However, you need to exercise some moderation when selecting the phrases to blacklist, so you do not send to trash the comments from genuine users or some words that spammers use, but you need them on your website. For instance, spammers use the word ‘handbag’ often on spam sites. So, if you are running a handbag store, this is not one of the words you would want to blacklist!

To make sure you don’t make this mistake, you can send them to the Comment Moderation section. This setting allows all the comments containing any blacklisted words to be held for moderation rather than delivered to the Spam field. Alternatively, you can set a combination of the two by adding some words to one field and others to the other field.

You can also add particular IP addresses, words, names, and URLs to put comments on hold in moderation to curb WordPress spam comments. You can access all these options on your WP Dashboard under the Settings > Discussion section. See below.

In the blank box, list the names, IP addresses, words, and URLs. If a comment contains these items, it will be put on hold for moderation.

To implement the changes, scroll down and click on Save Changes.

Hide the Website URL Field from the Comment Form

Both human and automated spammers are looking for platforms where they can feed their trash, and your comment form’s URL field provides just that. That is not all; it is a great attraction for idlers who do not have any interest in contributing to the discussion.

These spam comments on WordPress sites have at least two useless lines, and often the comment author name has a keyword or a combination of the name with keywords, e.g., Walker@SEOpro or James@healthexpert, etc.

But you don’t have to worry about this anymore. The CleanTalk plugin helps you to hide this feature on WordPress in just two steps.

To accomplish this, here are steps to follow:

Step 1: Open your WordPress and go to Plugins >Installed Plugins.

Next to the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin, click on the Settings.

Step 2: At the bottom of the panel click on the Advanced Settings. You will see more settings.

Scroll down to  Hide the <Website> field in Comments and Messages and save the changes.

Done! It is as simple as that.

Now open your WordPress website page and you will notice the difference as shown below:

Restrict Comment Privileges to Registered Users

Most spammers aim to capitalize on as many websites and blogs as possible. This implies that if you can make it hard for them to comment on your website or page, they may just give up and try elsewhere.

Luckily, WordPress software has made it easier for users to target this through limiting privileges to comment to registered visitors on your website. This adds more stumbling blocks between your comment section and spammers. As a spill-off effect, it motivates your users to create an account or subscribe for a membership.

You can access this option on Settings>Discussion panel on WP Dashboard. It is found under “Other comments settings.”

Just check the box close to “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” and click on Save Changes.

However, this setting has a limitation. It discourages commenters to leave comments on your website, which is not recommended, especially when aiming to grow your blog/site.

Disable Comments on Media Attachment

Another effective way to stop spam comments is by disabling comments on media attachments. By default, WordPress creates image attachment pages to make the image visible to users. Apart from seeing the image, users can also leave a comment on it.

Depending on the type of website and its content, most users often link images to the attachment page. However, there is always a downside to this. After some time, they get many attachment pages and remember comments are enabled on them by default.

If images form a significant contribution to your post, then that is okay. However, if you want to know how to keep visitors off from commenting on your images, we recommend that you turn off comments on Media attachments, which is straightforward to do.

To start, install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin and go to the Advanced Settings. Select the option for closing comments on the Media attachment.

Scroll down and select Save Changes to save these modifications. From now, the plugin will prevent comments on your WP media attachments and files.

Disable HTML in Comments

Disabling HTML in comments is also a great way to prevent spam links in comments.

To achieve that, add the code below to WP theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

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function wpb_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) { $incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment[‘comment_content’]); $incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] = str_replace( “‘”, ‘'’, $incoming_comment[‘comment_content’] ); return( $incoming_comment ); } function wpb_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) { $comment_to_display = str_replace( ‘'’, “‘”, $comment_to_display ); return $comment_to_display;}add_filter( ‘preprocess_comment’, ‘wpb_comment_post’, ”, 1);add_filter( ‘comment_text’, ‘wpb_comment_display’, ”, 1);add_filter( ‘comment_text_rss’, ‘wpb_comment_display’, ”, 1);add_filter( ‘comment_excerpt’, ‘wpb_comment_display’, ”, 1);remove_filter( ‘comment_text’, ‘make_clickable’, 9 );

Typically, this code changes HTML code into HTML entities, which are shown as the code and fail browser parsing.

Set Maximum and Minimum Comment Length

Another effective tip to stop comment spam is by installing the Yoast Comment Hacks plugin. This WordPress spam comments blocker is used to set a maximum and minimum comment length.

If you have not set this feature in WordPress, some spammers may take this opportunity to leave numerous comments with a single word. WordPress comments blocker plugins may not block a single word because the word looks natural anyway.

However, if you set the minimum comment length, any single word comment will be blocked. This encourages visitors to write a more sensible comment rather than a one-word comment.

Apart from setting max and min word length, this plugin adds some effective hacks around main WP comments to moderate them:

• It offers an option that redirects new commenters to a Thank You page.
• An option on the Comment Edit panel to modify the comment parent ID.
• An option in the WordPress toolbar to send emails to all commenters on a blog.
• Comment option routing. This includes a dropdown in a blog’s discussion settings to allow you to route comment emails to other users.
• An option in the Admin Comments panel to send emails to individual commenters.

See the screenshot below to understand better the functions of this plugin.

Disable Trackbacks in WordPress

One thing you won’t want to deal with is trackbacks. They form the biggest chunk of comment spam, and the irony is that they do not positively impact your SEO ranking in any way. Most blogs do not need you to enable trackbacks. You can opt to disable them on an individual page or the entire blog.

The option for disabling trackbacks is found on the Settings> Discussion. This disables trackbacks for the whole site.

Disable Comments on Old Posts

Through the Settings on WordPress, you can disable comments on old posts. This is a great feature, especially for sites that publish timely posts such as events and news blogs.

To accomplish this, go to Settings>Discussion page, and under “Other comment Settings,” the third line reads “Automatically close comments on articles older than” Check the corresponding box and key in the number of days you want the comments to be shown on the blog.

This means that all the comments older than the stated number (in this case, 30 days) will be deleted automatically. If necessary, you can override this number for individual blogs where you want the comments to remain on display.

Switch off Comments

What about switching off comments altogether to stop spam comments from users on a WordPress site? Sometimes you may feel moderating comments in your WordPress is draining you and taking much of your time. If that is the case, the Anti-Spam plugin can help you disable all the comments on your website. First, you should install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin.

 Open your WordPress admin screen >Plugins then Add new.

Enter CleanTalk in the search box and then select the Install button for <Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk>.

Now select the <Activate> button after the installation is complete.

After the activation, access plugin Settings and select the < Get Access Key Automatically> button, and then save the changes.

Now it is the time to disable WordPress Comments. This can be done in just three steps as follows:

Step 1: Go to Plugins> Installed Plugins.

Next to the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin, you will see Settings. Click on the icon to drop more information.

Step 2: Below the information that drops, you will see the Advanced Settings button. Click on it to display more settings.

In the Comments and Messages panel, click on the Disable all comments button.

Step 3: Select wherever the comments will be disabled(1) and click on the Save Changes button to save all your changes.

Disable Comments for Individual Posts

Sometimes users may publish their blogs and then disable comments in WP, or they just want to stop visitors commenting on a particular site blog. In these scenarios, disabling comments for individual posts comes in handy. Here you will need to do this in the post-editing panel for each post.

This setting is also essential if you have a post that has attracted a lot of spam in the past or if the post you want to publish is inherently controversial.

To set this feature, go to Posts. To access the blog that you need to edit, click on it to open the post-editing panel.

On the right next to Block, you will see the Document screen. Scroll down, and you will see Discussion. Click on the box next to it to uncheck “Allow Comments.” This disables comments on the post.

Click on Update to save changes, and you will never see comments on that post.

WordPress Plugin to Stop Spam Email

Even though there is a default plugin in WordPress, that does not mean there are no excellent alternatives. For instance, Anti-Flood and Anti-Crawler anti-spam plugins from Cleantalk are highly proficient spam protection plugins with various customizable settings and features.

So, how do these two CleanTalk anti-spam plugins work? Here is how:

CleanTalk Anti-Crawler: This universal plugin blocks all the bots coming to your site pages. The first visit of your site by any IP triggers the plugin to check for spam. In the event of the checking failing, a user is shown the CleanTalk blocking screen for three seconds. This is a screen spam checking technique and the user only gets to access the site if nothing suspicious is detected after three seconds elapses.

To know more about setting the CleanTalk anti-Crawler plugin, click here.

CleanTalk Anti-Flood:  This plugin is specifically designed for dealing with aggressive bots. To start, you should indicate the max number of site pages your visitors can access within a minute.  If an IP goes beyond this set max number, then CleanTalk blocks the screen for 30 seconds. During this time, the IP cannot access any site pages. When this time window elapses, the IP can now visit the pages, and the Anti-Flood option starts keeping the count of pages accessed again.

For instance, this maximum number is set by default at 20 per minute. The implication is that any visitor who accesses 10 site pages within a minute will be blocked for 30 seconds, and they cannot access your site during this time.

Whatever anti-plugin option you opt for, you will be helping to protect yourself from comment and email spam on your site and dedicate more time towards building your site and business.

Turn off Anonymous Comments

This is another tip that can help you to keep off spam comments from your website. Generally, WordPress native comments ask the visitor to provide four key information: website, comment, email, and name by default. However, visitors won’t be asked to provide this information if you have enabled anonymous comments in your WordPress.

To turn off anonymous comments in WP, simply go to Settings>Discussion, and you will see the ‘Other comments’ section. Click on the box next to “Comment author must fill out name and email.”

Save changes to store the changes you have made. From now on, it will be harder for spam bots to add automated comments (these form the most significant percentage of comment spam), but not entirely impossible. It will also make it challenging for people to leave ill-intentioned comments or troll your website.

Try Third-Party Comments

Suppose your WordPress comments are full, and implementing comment moderation settings and plugins proves futile, you can give a shot to third-party systems. The platforms provide anti-spam methods that are pretty effective in stopping spam comments on WordPress. Their foolproof anti-spam systems make it almost impossible for automated bots to detect, so they come in handy.

CleanTalk is one such platform. It offers a myriad of features that users can implement on their WordPress.

Why are Comment Spam Bots Targeting Your Website?

The reason why comment spam bots are targeting your website melts down to the ease of using a bot. The black market is flooded with networks known as “botnets” and platforms where anyone interested in spamming can hire a not for spamming comments. Do you know that only 10 botnets account for 80% spam?

Well, here are reasons these comments spam bots are used:

• To direct your traffic to unsolicited websites – Unsolicited sites typically rely on spam comments to attract more traffic to their sites. When users click on the links in comments posted on your site (trusting it), they are pivoted to these nefarious sites.
• To piggyback a link – One of the most used Black Hat SEO approaches to create backlinks to a website is spam comments. Low-quality websites use bots to post spam comments with links in order to get those SEO points.
• To burden your website server – when hackers want to crash your site, they employ bots. They achieve this by sending bots to attack your login page while spamming your server with requests. These requests take different forms, the common one being comments. As you try to get your website working normally, they exploit this window using other techniques to hack your site.

This shows how spam comments can be employed to reap off legit sites. We know you have employed almost all the techniques mentioned here to ensure spam comments don’t get to your site. However, you are not yet out of the woods. Spammers never stop working on the next new ways to get through your anti-spam measures.

As such, it is essential to understand how to know spam comments whenever you see them. These tips will help you:

Checklist for Identifying WordPress Spam Comments

Whenever you identify a comment with any of these characteristics, there is a high chance it is a spam comment.

• Check the IP and email of the user in the blacklist base: CleanTalk has made it easier to identify emails and active IPs used to spam sites. It also provides a list of domains that are promoted using spam. You can access this list here to see the spam activity of these IPs and emails.
• The comment contains a suspicious link: often, a spam link will be shortened and sometimes contains numbers. These links usually redirect visitors to unsolicited sites that spread viruses or deal with drugs.
• The comment is very flattering and neither here nor there: if you come across such flattery comments like “A captivating post” or ” A great article, I will re-read it,” etc., but you notice that they are actually irrelevant according to the blog, that is undoubtedly a spam comment.
• The comment contains unusual keywords: it is a spam comment if it includes a particular keyword such as those utilized for SEO building. Often, the keyword is not used naturally.
• A short and generic comment: Just like in the second checklist, spammers post very brief comments like ” An educative write-up,” “Great write-up,” etc. Bots send the same comments on many multiple sites.
• The name of the user is a Company name: Spam commenters use this trick to blackmail visitors into thinking that they belong to the company and not acting in an individual capacity. In this case, they seek to redirect traffic to the company website.

Conclusion

Building a website or a blog on WordPress is not an easy task, and when it is finally up and running, you don’t want it to be cluttered by spam comments. They make your site look unprofessional, and if you don’t know how to stop them, soon you will see a significant decrease in the number of real users on your website. That is an experience you don’t want to encounter!

Therefore, take action as soon as possible to stop spam comments before everything goes south. This means coming up with impenetrable anti-comment spam strategies.

To curb comment spam on your WP site, you can:

• Turn on Comment Moderation in WordPress
• Minimize the Number of Links Allowed Per Comment
• Create a List of ‘Blacklisted’ Words
• Hide the Website URL Field from the Comment Form
• Restrict Comment Privileges to Registered Users
• Disable Comments on Media Attachment
• Disable HTML in Comments
• Set Maximum and Minimum Comment Length
• Disable Trackbacks in WordPress
• Disable Comments on Old Posts
• Switch off Comments
• Disable Comments for Individual Posts
• Turn off Anonymous Comments
• Try Third-Party Comments

Ready to make your site appear more professional, maintain your visitors, and attract new ones? The above WordPress anti-spam strategies can do the magic if well implemented.

While social media comes with a myriad of benefits, it never lacks demons in its closets. As a user of social media platforms, the threat of spam, trolls, and other carefully curated abuses can make you feel intimidated and wonder whether building a community on social media is worth it after all. However, with the proper knowledge, you can build a community effortlessly without worrying.

This comment moderation write-up will teach you all the key essentials of formulating a comment moderation policy and implementing it. In this guide, we will not limit ourselves to any particular niche, as each niche would require varying requirements. Therefore, this is a general comment moderation guide applying to anyone online.

Let’s dive in.

Table of contents

In this comment moderation guide, we will cover the following aspects:

• What is Comment Moderation
• WordPress comments Moderation and its importance
• User Roles than Can Implement Comment Moderation
• How to Approve Comments
• How to Allow/Prevent Comments for Specific Posts in WordPress
• Comment Settings Configuration
• How to Disable Comment Moderation
• How to Moderate First Time Authors
• How to Avoid Comment Spam on the Site
• Limit Email Notifications

Understanding Comment Moderation

Before we even define comment moderation, it is important to define one of the keywords of this phrase, ‘comment.’ A comment is a way through which your website visitors can communicate with you and other readers. For instance, your visitors can contribute to a particular article you wrote, leave questions and give their view.

So, in a layman’s language, comment moderation is the process of approving comments guided by a set of precincts. Therefore, you can choose what comments are to be posted on your website manually or by enabling settings to approve comments selectively.But is WordPress comment moderation worth your time and effort? Well, since you are just getting started on WordPress content moderation, a quick dive into the two sides of comment moderation will do.

Why Comment Moderation Is Essential

Here are three main reasons why you need to implement WordPress comment moderation:

• You don’t want your blog to become spam-infested. Irrelevant comments may bombard your blog without the relevant spam filtering tools to moderate comments. So, by moderation, you can take full control of your WordPress and choose the comments from trusted visitors only. You put your blog on the right path to commanding authority in your selected niche with quality comments from trusted users.
• Avoiding possibly malicious sites. Some users might have ill-conceived intentions and include links that you are redirected to malicious sites if you click on them. If this happens to your users, they may lose faith in you and ultimately lose them. This can be avoided by comment moderation, where you block comments with such links.
• Add value to the otherwise boring post. Do not underestimate the contribution of your readers to your post. Some have amassed a wide knowledge about the topic you might have written, and their well-informed comments will attract knowledgeable users who will add their golden views to your post; this is what you are looking for. Do not forget that the comments form part of your content!

Reasons to Avoid Moderating Comments

• Moderating comments is a time-consuming undertaking. This is especially true for large sites with a lot of traffic. Unless you opt for a third-party comment system, it can be draining or even impractical to achieve comment moderation.
• Comment moderation can be frustrating for many genuine users looking to contribute to the post. Whenever users contribute to the discussion, they want to see it immediately upon clicking ‘post.‘ Considering that it takes time to filter the comments, especially when doing it manually, this can be disheartening. Sometimes you might even not be around to approve it!
• There are other better ways of dealing with comment spam, such as plugins. For example, you can install the anti-spam plugin from the WordPress directory by searching the plugin directory for the word “Spam.”

Now that we have looked at both sides of the coin, which side do you take? It is not a rocket science thing. Here at Cleantalk, we recommend comment moderation but do it smartly.

The best thing is that the WordPress comment system is built with this in mind, and it allows users to moderate comments efficiently while throwing out ill-intentioned ones.

Moderating Comments in WordPress

With moderation, a user can choose which comments to appear and which not to appear on his blog. If enabled, comments remain hidden and appear on your blog only when you approve them. So, how do you set up comment moderation in WordPress?

Step 1: Go to the Dashboard toolbar and click Settings, and continue to the Discussion panel. This opens the Discussion Settings screen.

Step 2: On this screen, you will see email me whenever. Here, select whether or not to be emailed whenever someone posts a comment or is held for moderation. In WordPress, both options are ticked.

Note: The email entered on the Settings>General screen is the one you receive emails in by default. If you do not regularly check this email, we recommend you add a new one.

Step 3: To moderate all the comments, for “Before a comment appears,” choose “Comment must be manually approved.”

To filter comments from specific emails, IP addresses, or URLs without putting all comments on hold, see setup comment moderation criteria to prevent spam in the approving comment section after this.

Step 4: Though this is optional, some users find it extremely important. On comment moderation, you can choose a max number of links contained in a comment before it is put on hold for moderation. By default, this number is set at two, but you may choose to increase this number based on how you use your blog.Step 5: On the bottom of the screen, click on Save Changes. All the changes you have made will be implemented immediately.

User Roles than Can Implement Comment Moderation

First things first. You can choose user roles that can moderate comments. In the checkbox, click to add the user role.

These roles are added by default in WordPress by a plugin. However, if you have a paid plugin membership, those additional roles are automatically included here.

The moderation dashboard also allows you to exclude comments from contributors. For instance, you can decide to add administrator, author, and editor and exclude contributor.

This implies that only the comments from users who cannot moderate comments will be shown on the moderation dashboard.

Before a comment appears:

This section allows you to decide if you need the moderators to approve the comments manually before they are displayed.

On the same note, the moderation dashboard allows you to put on hold comments with an exceeding number of links. A large number of links characterizes most comment spams:

And right below this, you have extra options that you can employ to put on hold the comments into the moderation queue or send them to the trash in case they have some designated phrases.

You can list those words for the plugin to identify them easily:

So by setting these filters, all the comments containing more than the stated number of links and certain words mentioned will be directed in the dashboard under the “pending” section or in the “Trash” section.

How to Approve Comments

You need to follow the following steps to approve comments held for moderation manually:

Step 1: Click on the Dashboard toolbar to access Comments on the left. On the Comments screen, all the comments awaiting moderation are highlighted in yellow.

Step 2: Click Pending located at the top to display unapproved comments.

Step 3: If you point a comment with your cursor, a list of links will pop up. Choose the action you would like to take for that particular comment. You can either Approve or Unapprove, Quick Edit, Edit, Spam, or Trash.

Step 4: There is also an option for mass moderation of comments. To do that, click on the boxes next to the comments you want to moderate, and select the right action from the Bulk actions bar located at the top.Note: Designating a comment as Spam will result in all other comments from the user being marked as spam. If you want to make such comments disappear from your list, you will have to delete them manually.

Viewing Comments for a Single Post in WordPress Admin Area

The post editor enables you to see all pending and approved comments for a post. To do this, you need to click on the Post>All Posts and select the edit link under the post you are interested in.

At the bottom of the post editor, you will find all the comments for that post.

You can do everything on this section, including editing, deleting, replying, and moderating comments directly. In some cases, you may not see the comments below the post editor. In this scenario, go to Screen Options located at the top right corner and click on it to reveal a down menu. Tick on the box next to Comments. This will display all the comments for that post.

What Are Indicators Of A Spam Comment?

When you see spam, you will know it is spam! Here are sure-fire ways to identify spam comments:

• Useless website URL – As plugins get smart in filtering and blocking suspicious links in comments, spammers are exploring new ways to make sure such links get to your website. Spammers often exploit the <Website URL>field to place spam links in it. Luckily, while the spammers get smart, Cleantalk anti-spam is getting smarter, and now you can hide this field, and spammers won’t be able to access it to leave links. Click here to hide Website URLs from the WordPress Comment form.
• Comments with a bunch of keywords, bizarre characters, and several links – this is a straightforward way to tell that comment is spam and should not take you a lot of time to throw it in the trash. A genuine comment won’t have either of these.
• A comment containing a fake name – if you find a comment in your site left by a user with a strange name like “SEO Guru” or “Cheap Car Hire,” then this is an indication that the user is a marketer trying to spam your site for backlinks.

Generic comments – spammers have mastered the art of using generic comments to bypass your spam filter setting. Some examples are “Really Great Write-up,””Thanks,” or sometimes use your post title and make a generic statement ( i.e., I agree that the Cleantalk guide on how to do comment moderation in WordPress is essential for new beginners).

How to Enable/Disable Comments for Specific Posts in WordPress

If you do not want comments for your blog, pages, or posts, you can turn them off.

Allowing or Preventing Comments on All Pages and Posts

Step 1: Go to Dashboard toolbar> Settings> Discussion. This opens the Discussion Settings screen.

Step 2: On the Discussion screen:

• Tick Allow people to post comments on new articles to display comment entry boxes on all new pages and posts.
• To limit comment entry boxes from being visible on new pages and posts, untick Allow people to post comments on new articles.

Step 3: Scroll to the bottom and select Save Changes. A Setting Saved confirmation will pop up. Hurray! Everything is done!

To close all comments altogether, CleanTalk Anti-Spam offers the Disable all comments option. Depending on the comments you want to disable, you can access either of the following three options:

• Disable comments for all posts
• Disable comments for all pages
• Disable comments for all media

These settings make it impossible for commenters to leave a comment on desired posts, including existing and old ones.

Allowing or Preventing Comments for Specific Pages and Posts

Step 1: Go to the Dashboard toolbar> Posts or Pages. If you already have a new page or post on your blog, edit it. If you do not have either of these, you would need to create a new post.

Step 2: Scroll down to access the Discussion screen. Sometimes, this screen is hidden, and you may not see it. In this case, you need to add it. To do so, click Screen Options at the top of the panel and then go to Discussion. This panel appears under the Edit section. Clicking on Screen options again will hide the Options panel.

Step 3: Now that you have the Discussion panel:

• To enable comments, click Allow Comments.
• To disable comments (from all visitors and blog members), unclick Allow comments.

Step 4: On the top right of the panel, select Save Draft,Publish, or Update. You will see a confirmation update pop up at the top of your screen.

Configuration of Comment Settings for Your Website

WordPress allows you to take full control of your entire website through configuration. To change the comment configuration for your website, go to Settings> Discussion Settings.

Under the Discussion Settings page, there are various sections, which we will discuss below.

• The top section on this panel controls the default settings of the article. The first option is the settings that allow communication between blogs. I.e., the other blogs are alerted when you link to them. The second option provides the same communication from other blogs to be allowed to your site. We call them trackbacks and pingbacks, and we advise that you do not check these options. The first option can make your entire site perform below par, and the second option usually creates a gate pass for bombardments with spam comments. Besides, neither of the two features add to your SEO.
• Going forward, we have the third option, ‘Allow people to post comments on new articles.‘ We have shown you how to turn on and off this feature earlier.

• After the default article settings section, you have Other comment settings. Here the first option is “Comment author must fill out name and email’. All comment authors are mandated to provide the stated details when posting their comments. You should tick this box unless you want users providing comments on your site to remain anonymous.

WordPress also allows you to set and make it mandatory for users to register to your website before commenting. However, we do not recommend checking this option unless the nature of your site requires it.

Down there, you also have an option where you can close comments on older articles. This feature can also be utilized for spam prevention, though it all depends on the user.

Users can also reply to comments left by other users. These replies appear encased under the main comment. However, you have to set this feature by checking the box “Enable threaded (nested) comments.” You can determine how long these threads can be. The WordPress theme handles the other metrics, such as the appearance of these threaded comments. Setting too many levels can dull the entire thread, so the levels are set by default to five for most WordPress themes.

Often an article might start getting a lot of readerships and, therefore, numerous comments. This makes the comment section extend downwards as more and more comments are added, something that will make reading the newest comments hard.To tackle this issue, you can create Comment pages by splitting the comments. By default, 50 level comments are set, but you have an option to decrease or increase the levels. This option also displays the last page of comments first, but you can reverse it.

How to Disable Comment Moderation

For some reason, you may want to turn off comment moderation, filter out spam and publish comments automatically.

Here is how to go about it:

• Login to your WordPress site.
• Go to Settings> Discussion and go to the section named “Before a comment appears.”

• You will see “Comment must be manually approved,” and Comment author must have a previously approved comment.”
• Untick both boxes and click Save Changes at the bottom. It is as simple as that.

Note: immediately you hit that Save Changes button, all the comments on articles and posts from new users will be automatically published.

How to Moderate First Time Authors

In our introduction, we noted that comment moderation could be time-consuming and straining at times. However, WordPress software is designed to take away some of these pains. Through an automatic approval for comment authors who were once approved, you do not need to moderate their comments once they post a comment. So how do users enable this WordPress moderate comments feature?

• Proceed to Settings>Discussion, 
• you will see the “Before a comment appears” section with two boxes: the first one reads “Comment must be manually approved,” and the second one reads, “Comment author must have a previously approved comment.” 
• Check the second box and leave the first box unchecked.

Note: some previously approved authors have mastered this feature and can leave good comments when new but start posting fluff after a while because they know their comments are not being moderated. So, do not take your eye off them and leave them to run the show.

How to Avoid Comment Spam on the Site

While your blog has some embedded anti-spam features, you can configure your own Comment Blacklist.

• Set Comment Moderation to thwart spam: On the Discussion Settings, you can set a mechanism to thwart comments with specific words from appearing. You can also specify comments originating from specified sources to put on hold for moderation.
• Comment Blacklist tool will do wonders: You can come up with a list of terms to blacklist. In this case, any comment containing these terms will automatically be thrown out from your blog without the need for moderation. Here is how to set it up:

Step 1: go to the Dashboard toolbar> Settings> and then Discussion. Open the Discussion panel.

Step 2: on the Discussion Settings panel, scroll down to the bottom. You will see a large text box close to Comment Blacklist. In this box, input the words that you do not want to appear on your website.

Step 3: After adding those terms on the Comment blacklist, click Save Changes, and you are done.

• Flag comments to be put on hold for moderation: When you blacklist comments, they are deleted automatically without further moderation. However, when comments are flagged for moderation, it is an entirely different thing. The comments held for moderation are not deleted but need the approval to appear on your blog. This is how you can flag them:

Step 1: go to Dashboard toolbar> Settings> and then Discussion. This opens the Discussion Settings.

Step 2: still on Discussion Settings, the Comment Moderation section will have these two options for making changes:

• Decide on the maximum number of links that will make a comment be flagged for moderation.
• Add URLs, emails, or IP addresses that will flag a comment for moderation. In each line, use only a single entry.

Step 3: At the bottom of the screen, click save changes.Step 4: If you want to avoid manual actions, you should install an anti-spam plugin to automatically block spam. CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is touted by most users as an effective and go for option when it comes to spam prevention on WordPress.

Limit Email Notifications

Comment notification makes more sense to people who do not log into their websites regularly. So, if you are not one of them, enabling this feature is not necessary.

The process of enabling or disabling this feature is simple. 

• Just scroll the menu to the “Email me whenever” section, and you will see two boxes. 
• The first option reads “Anyone posts a comment,” and the second one reads, “A comment is held for moderation.”
• If you tick the first option, you will receive an email whenever a comment is posted. 
• Checking the second option means you will get an email whenever a comment is put on hold for moderation.

Comment Requirements, Cookies, and More

Your WordPress is set by default to require all users commenting on your post to provide their name and email address. However, you are the king of your site, and you can do more. For instance, if you want to limit subscribers’ commenting rights, you can make it mandatory for users to be logged into your website to comment.

And based on where you are on the globe, you should think about allowing the site setting for Show comments cookies opt-in checkbox. Enabling this feature adds a GDPR compliant opt-in for cookies. In this case, the user’s name, email, and browser are saved automatically in the browser for future commenting.

Comment Order

The WordPress software lists the comments by default, starting with the oldest (first) to the newest (last). However, you can change this comment order setting and reverse it, i.e., start with the most recent at the top and oldest at the bottom.

Changing this setting is crucial, especially if your commenters contribute up-to-date content such as a blog about medical research findings or local eating joints with comment views.

Disable Comments after a Certain Period

WordPress allows you to disable comments after a certain period, which might be useful depending on what your site offers.

Generally, you need comments because they are good. Whether they come to your website like a waterfall or trickle in one by one as new readers discover your post, they are crucial to your site. Besides, they are a sign that you provide relevant content and your site is attracting traffic.

As such, we are against limiting the period for comments unless the reason for doing so is justifiable. Do not check this option in your settings.

However, there are some scenarios where you would want to limit the timeframe for comments. For instance, if your posts are promotional in nature and require readers to comment to enter, undoubtedly, you will have to close the comments when your promotions end.

Plugins for Filtering Comment Spams

While WordPress provides default options for filtering spam, they are not sufficient for identifying spam per se. However, there are very effective plugins that a user can opt for to spot and block spam. Here are some of them that have proved their hardiness:

CleanTalk Anti-Spam Plugin

This is one of the best WordPress plugins out there that you can use. Here is how to install it in WordPress:

Step 1: Go to the WordPress Admin section > Plugins and click on the “Add New” button.

Step 2: Type the keyword “Cleantalk,” and you will see “ Spam Protection by Cleantalk.” Click the “Install Now” button near the name of the plugin.

Step 3: After the installation process is complete, click “Activate.”

OR: In the “Plugins” section, you can see the installed plugin “Spam Protection by CleanTalk” just click on the “Activate” button under the plugin name.

Step 4: Proceed to “Settings”> “Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.”

OR: Go to the CleanTalk panel on the top of the page and select “Settings.”

On the CleanTalk Control panel, you will see an access key. Copy and paste it in the “Access key” field. Turn on plugin options and click on the “Save Changes” button.

Now you can run a test registration or leave a comment using the blacklisted email st********@ex*****.com.

Note: Don’t run any tests while logged in as an admin.

Give Users an Opportunity to Moderate Comments for You

Lastly, the other criteria you can employ to bring some sanity while moderating comments on your site is trusting some authors or editors to run the moderation show. Generally, you should trust anyone to moderate the comments for you, but the most loyal users.

If your blog has amassed a sizable authority and authorship, and a considerable number of users comment on it, this is the best way to manage the comments.

If you have created a community of loyal members, you can choose trusted users and give them access to moderate comments from other users. However, note that they will need the motivation to keep moderating your site. To achieve this, you can come up with a reward system. For instance, you can allow backlinks to their blogs or simply feature them on your team page. There are many other reward plans you can consider too.

Final Thoughts

We hope we have highlighted the key points in this guide that will guide you to set up and moderate comments on your WordPress site.

Find out more about everything WordPress on our blog, and consider subscribing to be notified whenever new material is uploaded!

Ease is one of the major reasons why so many people choose WordPress. Yet, it is common to get stuck at some phase. If you are struggling how to reset WordPress admin password from phpMyAdmin, then you have landed on the right page.

In this article, we’ll talk about resetting WP passwords through phpMyAdmin so you can get access to your website account in no time. We have also included some screenshots to make the job easier for you.

Why You May Need to Reset Your Password with phpMyAdmin

Here are some reasons why someone may need to reset their WP password:

• Your website has been hacked by someone and you are not able to login to your admin panel
• You do not remember the password or login details
• There’s a bug that is not letting you log in to your account

In all these cases, you will have to know how to reset WordPress admin password from phpMyAdmin.

Resetting the WordPress Password When You Have Email Access

It is fairly easy to reset your WP password if you have access to the email that you used to create your account.

Follow these steps:

• Go to the WordPress login screen and click the lost password option.

• You will now land on the password reset page where you will be asked to provide details such as your email address or username. Enter the details and proceed. WordPress will send you an email with a link to reset your password.
• It can take a few minutes to receive the email. Check your spam folder if you don’t receive it in 10 minutes. Also, make sure you entered the right email address.
• Be quick to use the link to reset your password as the link will expire in a few hours if not used.

Once you click on the link, you will land on a page where you will be asked to enter your new password. Provide the details and you’re done.

Resetting WordPress Password through phpMyAdmin When You Don’t Have Email Access

Sometimes you may have to reset your password without having access to your email address. The situation can be a little tricky, yet it’s still possible to get access to your account if you know how to reset the WordPress admin password from phpMyAdmin.

While this method works, remember that you will need access to phpMyAdmin in order to use this tool.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to reset WordPress admin password from phpMyAdmin:

• Log into your phpMyAdmin and click databases.

• You will see a list of all your databases. From here, choose your WordPress database.
• Click ‘Structures’ if you do not see your database.

• Find ‘wp_users’ in your Table column and click on it to browse the section.
• Now you will be able to see your username under the name ‘user_id’. In most cases, your username would be ‘admin’. Choose this option and go to Edit. 
• Look for user_pass that’ll contain a long list of letters and numbers. To reset your password, select and delete these letters and numbers and enter your new password.

• Be careful when selecting your new password. It should be hard to guess. Once done, click the dropdown menu under the function section and choose MD5.
• In the example above, you can view both your password and your dropdown menu selection. Ensure this information is correct. Once all looks good, click the ‘Go’ button found at the bottom of the page.
• Done. You have reset your WP password.

Log in as you normally would and it will work. If you are still not able to log in, then check your password and go through the process again to ensure you made no mistake the first time you did it.

P.S: The method differs slightly from platform to platform. Bluehost cPanel, for example, may be easier than other providers.

Resetting Someone Else’s WordPress Password phpMyAdmin

Sometimes, you may have to change someone else’s WordPress password through phpMyAdmin. This usually happens when the user forgets their password and the Forget Password link is broken or not working for any reason.

You will also need to manually reset someone else’s password if they have no option to retrieve it, i.e.: they cannot access the email that they used to register the account.

The process to do so differs very slightly. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

• Log into your phpMyAdmin and click Databases.
• You will see a list of all your databases. From here, choose your WordPress database. 
• Click ‘Structures’ if you do not see your database. 
• Find ‘wp_users’ in your Table column and click on it to browse the section. In the previous section, you were changing your own password so you chose ‘admin’. Here, you will look for the user ID of the specific account that you wish to access or target. 
• Choose your required ID under the ‘user_id’ section and click Edit.
• Look for user_pass that’ll contain a long list of letters and numbers. To reset your password, select and delete these letters and numbers and enter your new password.
• Be careful when selecting your new password. It should be hard to guess. Once done, click the dropdown menu under the function section and choose MD5.
• In the example above, you can view both your password and your dropdown menu selection. Ensure this information is correct. Once all looks good, click the ‘Go’ button found at the bottom of the page.
• Done. You have reset your WP password.

Ask the user to access their account. They’ll be able to log in using the password you just entered. Remember that the user will receive an email regarding the change but it is common for the email to land in spam, so make sure to ask them to check the spam folder. You can also inform them manually of the new password. 

If it does not work, then go through the process again to ensure you made no mistake while resetting the password.

How to Connect to WordPress Database through phpMyAdmin to Access Users Table

You will have to connect to your WP database with phpMyAdmin before you can reset your password and access the user table. 

The process is easy and involves logging into the cPanel provided by your hosting provider. For example, if you use Bluehost then you will have to log in to Bluehost cPanel in order to reset your password. But, take care of vulnerabilities and remember passwords are case sensitive.

Once you have logged in to your account, it will be easy to reset your password. However, you’ll need the name of your database in order to get the job done.

While the process to log into the database may differ from provider to provider, the process of changing your password once you have entered the database appears to be uniform if you are using the same system.

The Difference Between Password Change and Password Reset 

For security reasons, it’s essential to know the difference between the two.

Technically speaking, both do the same job of giving you a new password to log in to your account but they work differently. 

You opt to reset your password when you do not know your current one. You can do it by one of the many methods explained above, including using phpMyAdmin.

You change your password when you know your current password. This is because changing it requires authorization, i.e.: the need to log in to your account and provide the current password. You only have to click the change password button to get the job done.

What if I Receive a WordPress Password Reset Email?

Receiving a password resetting email without initiating it can be a cause of concern as it indicates that someone’s trying to reset your password or access your account or phpMyAdmin.

If such is the case then act fast and improve security by adding 2FA when you can and using a password that is tough to crack. 

Also, don’t click any link or button received as it might be a phishing attempt causing you to lose access to your account. Remember that the security of your account is largely in your own hands.

How to Reset the WordPress Password from phpMyAdmin: Conclusion

It is important to know how to reset the WordPress password from phpMyAdmin because you can’t be sure when you may need to reset your login information. It may get very difficult to access your account if you do not know the ways to reset your password.

Whichever option you use, password reset only takes a few minutes. WordPress provides a nice layer of security and only authorized users can get access to cPanel and make any changes. However, remember that passwords are case sensitive and you must be very careful when changing or resetting your WP password.