How to moderate comments in WordPress

Jacqueline

Last Update 4 bulan yang lalu

Moderating comments in WordPress is essential to keep your site engaging and spam-free. Here’s a quick guide on how to manage comments and handle spam:


1. Accessing Comment Moderation Settings
  • Go to WordPress Dashboard → Settings → Discussion.
  • You can control who can comment, whether comments need approval, and how you want to be notified about comments.

2. Manually Approving Comments

  • Go to Settings → Discussion.
  • You can choose to manually approve comments. This gives you control over what appears on your site.
  • Enable the “Comment must be manually approved” option to prevent unwanted comments from going live without your review.

3. Using Akismet or Other Anti-Spam Plugins

  • Akismet Anti-Spam is a popular plugin to block spam comments automatically. It checks comments against its spam database and filters out likely spam without your involvement.
  • reCAPTCHA plugins can also help by adding a verification step for users who want to leave a comment, reducing automated spam bots.

4. Blacklisting Specific Words or IP Addresses

  • In the Discussion settings, there’s an option called Comment Moderation where you can add words, email addresses, or IP addresses that automatically flag a comment for review or deletion if they’re detected.

5. Setting Up a Comment Policy

  • Make sure to have clear guidelines in place for your community or blog visitors to avoid misunderstandings and reduce negative or off-topic comments. You can pin this policy at the top of your comment section.

6. Using the Trash and Spam Features

  • WordPress has built-in buttons for marking comments as spam or moving them to trash. Once a comment is marked as spam, WordPress will automatically learn and block similar comments in the future.

7. Limit Comment Links

  • Spammy comments often contain multiple links. In the Discussion settings, you can limit the number of links allowed in a comment before it gets held for moderation.


By setting up proper moderation and using the right tools, you can significantly reduce the amount of spam while keeping your comments section engaging and clean.

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