No more spam on your WordPress website

10 Nov 2023 | web design

jochem oomen | geen spam | Foto: Sander de Wilde

Spam on WordPress websites, it can be terribly irritating. Fortunately, you can do something about this. What spam is making WordPress users’ lives miserable? And how do you make sure you stop getting spam? You’ll read about it in this article.

What kind of spam does a WordPress website get?

Do you have a blog under which people can comment? Do you have a contact form on your WordPress website? Sooner or later, they know where to find you. You suddenly get spam messages in, say, English, Russian or Chinese through your contact form. Or comments in these languages under a blog post. With, of course, a link to a page you’d better not click on.

Because that’s what spam message writers are all about: generating more revenue through clicks on hyperlinks! And with a little bit of bad luck, this link contains malware. For example: you click on the link, you download something and a virus installs itself on your computer. You don’t want to experience this.

Who writes those spam messages?

Until a few years ago, spam messages were still written manually; today, malicious people simply put a bot to work. Such a bot scours the Internet for blogs and contact forms and then proceeds to post spam messages at will.

Not only is this annoying, but under a blog it just comes across as super unprofessional. See spam appearing under a blog? Probably, you won’t take this website seriously.

No more spam – how do you get started?

As annoying as spam can be, you can easily prevent it on your WordPress website. Two tips that cost absolutely nothing to get started:

  1. Moderate comments under your blog: set up your blog so that comments appear only after approval from you. Here’s how to do it: go to your WordPress dashboard and click on “settings.” Next, go to “discussion.” Here you can check the following box for the “before a comment appears” section: “comment must be manually approved”. This way you can make sure the spam messages no longer appear under your articles!
  2. Put a captcha field under your contact form: before people press the “submit” button, they must first solve a task to prove they are a human and not a robot. This could be ticking all the bridges or solving a math problem. At a theme and builder like Divi such a calculator is present by default. With other themes, you may have to put in a plugin like Google reCaptcha.

These systems work, but are limited: the spam messages now no longer appear below your blog, but they do appear in your comment overview in your dashboard. In addition, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), robots can already solve captcha tasks correctly. In other words, you are not rid of it yet.

Looking for more tips to keep your WordPress website secure? Find out here how to keep your website safe!

No more spam – how do you really get rid of it?

So is there really no method to get rid of those terrible bots? Of course it does! With the CleanTalk plugin you literally weather all spam from your WordPress website. In fact, CleanTalk not only secures your blog and contact form, but offers a complete website security package with firewall, malware scanner, brute force protection and live monitoring of website visitors.
The plugin CleanTalk thus works on two fronts simultaneously: the spam messages disappear and the robots, which create them, are effectively combated. This keeps your website safe not only for yourself as a website owner, but also for your visitors. This plugin prevents robots from accessing your site and doing malicious things with data from your shop customers, for example.

First, below we go over how CleanTalk works. Below that, you’ll see another drastic way, which is to remove the comment options and contact form.

CleanTalk is one of my favorite tools. Curious about more? Discover my favorite tools for both web design and photography here.

CleanTalk – how does it work?

Because this effective plugin is under continuous development, it also comes with a price tag: namely $9 (USD) per year. And let’s face it: for the work it does, that’s a huge deal! Furthermore, it also comes with support if you have questions or get stuck somewhere.

Interested in CleanTalk? Follow this roadmap for an effective anti-spam treatment:

  1. Register on CleanTalk’s website.
  2. Choose your package, for example, 1 website for $9 (USD) per year.
  3. Register your website.
  4. You may receive an email with a confirmation link from this company. Do this, because this is how you complete your registration.
  5. Go to your website, to the plugins section of your WordPress dashboard.
  6. Click on “add new” and search specifically for “CleanTalk.”
  7. Look for the “spam protection by CleanTalk” plugin, install it and activate it.
  8. Next, you’re going to set up CleanTalk. In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to “settings” and hit “Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.”
  9. Here you will see that you need to enter an “access key.” Your access key can be found in your CleanTalk account, so not in WordPress itself. Then in your WordPress dashboard, click “save changes.”
  10. See, your anti-spam filter works!

CleanTalk – what does it do?

This does CleanTalk:
  • It prevents spam under your blogs or through your contact form.
  • It monitors your visitor traffic. IP addresses blacklisted by CleanTalk can’t do anything on your site. It is continuously updated.
  • It tracks your spam statistics: you can find them in the top black bar of your WordPress dashboard. This counts how many spam attempts have been blocked.
  • Security: aren’t you working with a security plugin like WordFence, then you can also consider the “CleanTalk security” option.

Do you want not only a secure but also a fast website? Then read here how to make your WordPress website faster.

No more spam – the rigorous and sustainable solution

Do you value sustainability? Don’t think a contact form and comments under your blog are necessary? Then take the hard and sustainable approach. You can do it this way:

  1. Disable comments under blogs: download the free plugin “Disable comments” and get rid of the comments option on your blog immediately by choosing “disable all comments” in the settings. Attention: did you set up a comment option in your blog template via your builder? Don’t forget to remove it manually.
  2. Removing your contact form: frequently, website owners choose to remove this form. You can do that through your website builder. Just don’t forget to clearly put your contact information on your contact page, such as an e-mail address and a phone number. You want to remain reachable, of course.

Why is this a sustainable solution? By removing the comment section and contact form, you cut down on your website’s code. Fewer scripts load, the number of MBs and KBs per page or blog decreases, and your speed improves. And you don’t have to put additional software like CleanTalk on your website.

Want to read more about sustainable web design? Then discover here how you can make your own WordPress website more sustainable.

Conclusion

Thus, spam can occur on all WordPress websites. A free mode of operation reduces the number of spam messages and with a paid plugin like CleanTalk you are instantly rid of all spam because it also addresses the cause! Want to be even more rigorous? Then choose the sustainable option and remove the contact form and turn off the response function.

Are you suffering from spam on your website? What do you do about that?

This article contains affiliate links. Look here for more information.

This article was updated on December 21, 2024.

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