4 Ways to Reduce Spam Comments

We all do hate Spam Comments on our WordPress blog but you might have read my earlier post regarding How to get Rid of spam comments, Well if you haven’t you should its worth a look, well after that technique the Spam’s where minimal but again after some time I started receiving few Spam Comments so then I came again with a research and found 4 Ways to Reduce Spam Comments

Well let’s get started on our way to Reduce Spam Comments and make our blog SPAM FREE

1. Using Different Comment Systems

Well if you are getting Swamped with Spam comments then I guess you should definitely give a try to Other Third Party Comment Systems Such as Disqus or JetPack Comments, This systems helps to prevent mostly automated Spams that are made using Spam bots and there are also other benefits to them that they help to keep our visitors Engaged to the website so its kind of Double bonus

Well you might have seen me using Disqus Comment System Recently on my blog, I really liked it and it helped engaging visitors into the site and it reduced a bit of Bounce Rate because of that.

2. Disabling Direct Access

Well even after using Disqus as my comment System, I still received a Spam comment in my WP Dashboard that’s when I came to realize that someone is directly accessing wp-comments-post.php it is a file through which our default comment form posts comments, so I thought of disabling its access by adding the below code in .htaccess file :

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*best2know.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) ^http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

Well the Other Two Methods that I found practically those are good but I haven’t used them.

3. Cookies for Comments Plugin

The plugin adds a stylesheet or image to your blog’s html source code. When a browser loads that stylesheet or image a cookie is dropped. If that user then leaves a comment the cookie is checked. If it doesn’t exist the comment is marked as spam.
— Donncha O Caoimh – Plugin Author

It also has a feature were it checks how much time it took to post the comment after the post is loaded, if it is under 3 seconds then it Marked as Spam. the plugin helps prevent both Automated and Manual Spams, it should be only used with Default comment System otherwise you will end up wasting resources.

4. Using CheckBox to Send Comments

This technique is kind of a old School trick but it does its work very well, in this technique we will add a Checkbox to our Default Comment form, that will have to be ticked before Posting a Comment. This will prevent only from automated Spams and does not hurt the real commenters, add the below code in comments.php above the submit button would be recommended

<label for="enable"><input type="checkbox" name="enable" id="enable" onClick="apply()" class="enable_checkbox">Confirm you are Human</label>

And add the below code in functions.php :

function checkbox_comments() { ?>
<script type="text/javascript">
function apply() {
var form_submit = document.commentform.submit;
var form_checkbox = document.commentform.enable;
form_submit.disabled=true;
if(form_checkbox.checked==true) {form_submit.disabled=false;}
if(form_checkbox.checked==false) {form_submit.enabled=false;}
}
</script>
<?php }
add_action('wp_head', 'checkbox_comments');