Part 3 of WordPress Plugins: 8 Awesome Anti-Spam WordPress Plugins

If you didn’t read the prior posts, definitely check out the 2 prior posts in the WordPress series:

  • Part 1 of WordPress Plugins: Do’s and Don’ts for WordPress Plugins
  • Part 2 of WordPress Plugins: 14 Awesome WordPress Plugins

To keep this post short, from a security standpoint, for now I’m going to focus on spam and blocking various IPs from your WordPress site. I’ll address other security issues in a future post.

As before, I’m going to give you 2 links: one for the WordPress plugin repository, one for the plugin author’s site. You can get the plugin at WordPress.org plugin repository, or via your installation of WordPress by going to Plugins > Add New and putting the name of one of these plugins in the search box.

I link the author’s site for those who want to do further research for the plugin, and as a bit of SEO love for these WordPress plugin developers.

This is not a comprehensive list of all plugins. This is just a list of those I have the most experience with or people I know have recommended. Feel free to join in the comment section with any WordPress anti-spam plugins you have found.

Sometimes, just one plugin isn’t enough. Sometimes plugins fight with each other. So installing all of these is not a good idea. At the very least, installing plugins that do the exact same thing is not always a good idea.

Because of that, I’m going to group the plugins below by how they prevent blog spam. So if one doesn’t work in your theme, or with your current plugins, or for whatever reason, you’ve got an alternative to try.

Admittedly, I have combined plugins that do the same thing, in a few cases, and having both helped.

Comment Checking and Moderation
I have 3 I recommend. All 3 of these services require you to sign up with their website, and then copy and paste a special key, or userid and password, to your plugin setup page. So don’t just install these and think you are set. Definitely read the instructions any time you install a plugin.

Akismet is very popular. It is free for personal use. For businesses, there is a fee for it though. WordPress author plugin site

The free alternative to Akismet is TypePad AntiSpam. This is great for smaller businesses on a budget, and with lower site traffic. WordPress author plugin site

Another way to deal with comment spam is to install a third party comment system, like Disqus. Some sites used Disqus in addition to either Akismet or TypePad AntiSpam. Disqus can play nicely with the other two plugins. WordPress author plugin site

IP Checking
On one of the sites I work with, we use AVH First Defense Against Spam. They check visitor IPs against those at by Project Honeypot, Stop Forum Spam, and Spamhaus. WordPress author plugin site

We have successfully used AVH First Defense Against Spam with Simple Trackback Validation. This is also very nice and, as the title says, simple plugin.WordPress author plugin site

A friend, Christine Gregory, recommends http: BL WordPress Plugin, another plugin that makes use of Project Honeypot. WordPress author plugin site

Site Registration
Sometimes, you’ll have individuals or bots trying to register for your site, that you just don’t want. Then bring down the Ban Hammer! WordPress author plugin siteLove this plugin (and the name)!

Sabre is another one used for controlling site registration. We’ve actually use this successfully with Ban Hammer. I know I’ve discussed my dislike of CAPTCHAs, but if things are getting really bad and you need a bit of help locking down a bot trying to repeatedly register for your site, they have a few different CAPTCHAs you can enable. One is a simple math problem that is solved (such as 3 + 7 = ). The nice thing is, the CATPCHA is optional; you do not have to enable that function. Sabre has a number of ways to deal with spam registration, the CATPCHA is only one of the methods. (I can’t seem to locate this author’s site.)

Not sure which plugins to use for your site? Not comfortable installing them? Hire me to handle your WordPress plugin installations for you.

Don’t see a plugin you use on here? Tell us about it! Which anti-spam plugins have you had success with?