CleanTalk's blog

Author: Anthony M

Hiding your WordPress username from bad bots

Do you know how to hide your WordPress usernames from bad bots? We are glad to introduce you a new Security plugin improvement: from now CleanTalk allows you to hide WordPress username from bad bots brute-force.

Before this improvement became available some bots could learn WordPress usernames by their ID and use it to brute-force these accounts later. For example, a request like «‎https://blog.cleantalk.org/?author=007»‎ could return the username «https://blog.cleantalk.org/author/james_bond».

This option is switched off by default so in order to avoid vulnerabilities like that we highly recommend to switch it on.

Step 1: Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins.

Step 2: Go to Settings beneath the Security plugin.

And after that choose General Settings.

Step 3: Go to Miscellaneous section and find checkbox ‎«‎Prevent collecting of authors logins» and just check this box.

Step 4: Press the «Save Changes» button.

Success! That’s how quickly CleanTalk allows you to hide WordPress username from bad bots

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Clean and Simple Contact Forms from spam.

August 6, 2021
How to protect your Clean and Simple Forms using CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin
After you created your Clean and Simple Contact Form you may get spam through this form. CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Clean and Simple Contact Forms from spam and save your visitors time.

Once CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be Clean and Simple Contact Forms but many others.

How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin

To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel → Plugins → Add New.

Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

After it is done go to the plugin settings, click the «Get Access Key Automatically» button. Then click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

That’s it! From now your WordPress website and Clean and Simple Contact Forms are protected from spam.

You can always use our detailed installation instructions.

Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download Contact Form by Clean and Simple Contact Forms

How to check that CleanTalk already protects your Clean and Simple Contact Forms from spam

You can test the work of Anti-Spam protection for your Clean and Simple Contact Forms by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Clean and Simple Contact Forms from spam.

Update

The protection works only for website visitors, not for website admins. Be sure to test the form protection using Incognito mode.

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects all forms at once: comments, registrations, feedbacks, contacts, reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
A complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features can be viewed here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction

WordPress spam protection
July 30, 2021
How to protect your Jetpack forms using CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin
After you created your contact form using Jetpack Forms you may get spam through comments and contact forms. Jetpack has an integrated system of manual moderation of 100% comments, but if you want to save your own time we have a smart solution for your site. CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects all of your Jetpack forms from spam.

Once CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be Jetpack contact forms but many others.

How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin

To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel → Plugins → Add New.

Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

After it is done go to the plugin settings, click the «Get Access Key Automatically» button. Then click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

That’s it! From now your WordPress website and Jetpack forms are protected from spam.

You can always use our detailed installation instructions.

Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download Contact Form by Jetpack Forms

How to check that CleanTalk already protects your Jetpack forms from spam

You can test the work of Anti-Spam protection for your Jetpack contact and comments form by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects all of your Jetpack forms from spam.

Update

The protection works only for website visitors, not for website admins. Be sure to test the form protection using Incognito mode.

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects all forms at once: comments, registrations, feedbacks, contacts, reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
A complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features can be viewed here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction

WordPress spam protection
July 20, 2021
Hiding PHP Notices and Warnings in WordPress
Sometimes you can see some PHP notices and warnings on your WordPress page. So we created this post to help hiding PHP Notices and Warnings in WordPress

Most of them don’t worth your attention. But if you are the plugin or theme developer then you should know about this so that you may fix them in next release. And some of this warnings and notices are sent to you just because the developer has to keep WordPress and PHP older versions compatible.

The easiest way of hiding PHP Notices and Warnings in WordPress

Just go to your wp-config.php file and set WP_DEBUG to false. This will not cause any changes to your website.

But sometimes this solution may not do the thing. Mostly this happens when you use shared cheap shared hosts. Usually hosts like this force various PHP notices and warnings. So if previous solution doesn’t work you may replace it with the next linen your wp-config.php file.
```
define('WP_DEBUG', false);
```
with this lines:
```
ini_set('display_errors','Off');
ini_set('error_reporting', E_ALL );
define('WP_DEBUG', false);
define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);
```
Great! We hope this tips will be useful for you!

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now!
July 19, 2021
How to protect your Gravity forms using CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin
After you created your contact form using Gravity Forms you actually may get spam. CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Gravity contact forms from spam.

Once CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be Gravity contact forms but many others.

How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin

To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel → Plugins → Add New.

Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

After it is done go to the plugin settings, click the «Get Access Key Automatically» button. Then click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

That’s it! From now your WordPress website and Gravity forms are protected from spam.

You can always use our detailed installation instructions.

Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download Contact Form by Gravity Forms

How to check that CleanTalk already protects your Gravity contact forms from spam

You can test the work of Anti-Spam protection for your Gravity contact form by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Gravity contact forms from spam.

Update

The protection works only for website visitors, not for website admins. Be sure to test the form protection using Incognito mode.

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects all forms at once: comments, registrations, feedbacks, contacts, reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
A complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features can be viewed here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction

WordPress spam protection
July 14, 2021
Introducing: CleanTalk Pixel
Our mission is to protect your website from spam. In order to do so we need to firstly identificate visitor’s IP address. But detecting IP address sometimes may go wrong because it may be substituted by some bots. So we decided to exclude the probability of false triggering and here comes the CleanTalk Pixel that improves your website spam protection.

What is CleanTalk Pixel and how does it improve your site spam protection

It is an «invisible» 1×1px image that Anti-Spam plugin integrates to your WordPress website. And when someone visits your website the Pixel is triggered and reports this visit and some other data including true IP address.

This Pixel is not located on some server but is created in HTML every time you load your website page. This exactly helps our system to get the most true IP address and not be confused by CDN or plugins caching site requests. And that’s exactly how CleanTalk Pixel improves your website spam protection.

How to connect Pixel to your website

Step 1: Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins.

Then go to Settings link next to CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin.

Step 2: Click on «Advanced settings» button at the bottom of the screen. More setting will appear.

Then find Add a CleanTalk Pixel… field in Data Processing section.

Step 3: Choose, how exactly Pixel will act:
- Via direct output – insert Pixel code into HTML from the backend.
- Via Javascript – insert Pixel code into HTML from the frontend.
- Auto – insert Pixel code into HTML from the backend if pixel detects a caching plugin (Recommended).
- Off – Pixel if disabled.
After that just press the Save Changes button.

Done! It really is that simple.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.
Create your Cleantalk account – Register now

You can see a complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features here.

WordPress spam protection
July 9, 2021
How to protect your Caldera forms using CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin
After you created your contact form using Caldera Forms you actually may get spam. CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Caldera contact forms from spam.

Once CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be Caldera contact forms but many others.

How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin

To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel → Plugins → Add New.

Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

After it is done go to the plugin settings, click the «Get Access Key Automatically»‎ button. Then just click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

That’s it! From now your WordPress website and Caldera forms are protected from spam.

You can always use our detailed installation instructions.

Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download Contact Form by Caldera Forms

How to check that CleanTalk already protects your Caldera contact forms from spam

You can test the work of Anti-Spam protection for your Caldera contact form by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin protects your Caldera contact forms from spam.

Update

The protection works only for website visitors, not for website admins. Be sure to test the form protection using Incognito mode.

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects all forms at once: comments, registrations, feedbacks, contacts, reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
A complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features can be viewed here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction

WordPress spam protection
July 6, 2021
How to hide Website URL Field From WordPress Comment Form
How many useful website URL’s did you get through comments on your website lately? Not too many, we believe. But it really is a good way for spammers to send spam websites using this form. This «Website URL» field is frequently used by spammers to place spam links in it. CleanTalk helps you protect your WordPress website comments by hiding this field off.

So we improved CleanTalk’s integration to Comments and from now you can just remove «Website URL» field from all of the comment forms on your website. This feature is disabled by default, but it will take less than a minute to enable it using your WordPress dashboard. This option does not completely remove the field but hides it on the page.

At the moment this feature works only with default WordPress Comments. So if your comments form is made with another plugin it will not be able to hide it’s «Website» field for now. If you use another comments plugin and still need to remove «Website URL» field – just let us know in the comments below.

How to hide «Website» field to protect your WordPress site comments

Step 1: Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins.

Then go to Settings link next to CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin.

Step 2: Click on «Advanced settings» button at the bottom of the screen. More setting will appear.

Then find Hide the «Website» field in Comments and Messanges section.

Step 3: Just switch it to «On» and press the «Save changes» button.

Done! It really is that simple.

Now just go to your WordPress site page and see the difference while CleanTalk helps you completely protecting your WordPress website comments

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.
Create your Cleantalk account – Register now

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects not only comments, but also registrations, feedbacks, contacts and reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support & free mobile app.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
A complete list of CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin features can be viewed here. https://cleantalk.org/help/introduction
WordPress spam protection
June 30, 2021
Contact Form 7 Spam Protection for WordPress
Once you created your contact form using Contact Form 7 you actually may get spam and still need a Contact Form 7 Spam Protection for WordPress.

Once CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin is installed it starts to protect all of the existing forms on your WordPress website. It may not only be Contact Form 7 contact forms but many others.

How to install Contact Form 7 Spam Protection for WordPress

To install the Anti-Spam plugin, go to your WordPress admin panel → Plugins → Add New.

Then enter «СleanTalk» in the search box and click the Install button for «Spam protection, Anti-Spam, FireWall by CleanTalk».

After installing the plugin, click the «Activate»‎ button.

After it is done go to the plugin settings and click the «Get Access Key Automatically»‎ button. Then just click the «Save Settings»‎ button.

That’s it! From now your WordPress website and Contact Form 7 form are protected from spam.

Download CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin | Download Contact Form by Contact Form 7

How to test your Contact Form 7(CF7) spam protection

You can check if CleanTalk Anti-Spam properly protects your Contact Form 7 from spam by using a test email s @ cleantalk.org (without spaces). First, open the form in an Incognito browser tab. Fill in all the required form fields and send a form. After submitting the form, you will see a block message about the block on the form submission.

If you have any questions, add a comment and we will be happy to help you.

Create your Cleantalk account – Register now and enjoy while CleanTalk protects your Contact Form 7 form from spam

Update

The protection works only for website visitors, not for website admins. Be sure to test the form protection using Incognito mode.

Update 2

Here are pros and cons of reCAPTCHA for Contact form 7.

Additional features
- CleanTalk protects all forms at once: comments, registrations, feedbacks, contacts, reviews.
- Installation takes about 1-2 minutes.
- Smart 100% protection against spambots.
- Always online – 24/7 technical support.
- Logs, personal lists, country filters, stop-words and many another.
Protect your website effortlessly—enhance your Contact Form 7 spam protection with CleanTalk today and keep your forms spam-free!
June 29, 2021
Access key rotation for Anti-Spam and Security
In case your website is connected to CleanTalk it uses a special Access key to exchange information. We have improved its functionality to guarantee you the safest user experience.

Connect your website to CleanTalk in 5 minutes and forget about spam.

Improved Access key safety

Your Anti-Spam and Security Access keys don’t have any expiration date. So don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything about it.

Access key doesn’t need to be manually renewed except several cases:
- In case you gave your website access to web developer or a freelancer and it may be compromised.
- When your website had been hacked.
- When you expect your CleanTalk access being given or copied to a third party.
- In case you have any other issues and risks with CleanTalk account access.
Also you can always change your password or email in CleanTalk dashboard.

How to update your Access key

Step 1: Add your website to dashboard using the button below. If your site is already connected to CleanTalk pass to Step 3.

Step 2: Input your website URL in “Site URL” field.

Step 3: Click on “Settings” button under your website name.

Step 4: Go to “Change the Access key”.

Step 5: Click on “Generate key” to create new safe Access key.

Step 6: Then Apply the key by pressing the button below.

Step 7: And just close the window after you are finished.

Well done! Your new Access key is successfully generated and applied to your website. From now it will be active and if needed, you may change it again to guarantee its safety.
June 25, 2021