Do you have Akismet installed? Is your WordPress site still getting lots of spam? In this article I will show you the easiest way to make your site spam free.
As you may know Akismet has one the most advanced checks for filtering spam in comments. It’s one of the featured WordPress plugins that is actively being maintained by some of the top WordPress developers. Then how can so many spam pass though it’s filter?
You see the issue is not the plugin, it’s how it operates. Akismet works by recognizing spam patterns in comments. It always needs to rely on these patterns and if a new pattern of spam is discovered it needs to be aware of it. As the web is going forward in terms of technology spammers are innovating new ways of spamming it. This makes it harder for plugins that only rely on pattern recognition to filter spam. Sometimes this may not even be possible because spammers use automated ways (Like CURL/HTTP POST) to send spam.
The only way to prevent this is to make sure that no comment can get passed via automated POST from remote URL and that the user posts comment by manually clicking on the submit button. After doing a lot of research I have finally found a WordPress plugin that does the job. It’s called Anti Spam.
After installing this plugin my site didn’t receive a single spam. I still have akismet active but it’s just not doing anything (My spam is getting blocked way before it even reaches akismet). This plugin was a life saver as I didn’t need to activate any reCAPTCHA or other third-party services to prevent spam.
I have now installed it on my other site and it’s working perfectly. Feel free to install this plugin and share your experience in the comments.