Recently, one of my students asked me how to remove the website URL field from the WordPress comment form.
The reason was obvious.
He was getting a lot of spam comments and wanted to know how to stop spam comments on the WordPress blog.
The comments were totally irrelevant and out of context. So, he thought that this might affect the organic ranking of his blog.
Don’t you think he was right?
Unfortunately, spam comments may indeed lower the website’s trust and authority in the eyes of search engines for numerous reasons.
That’s why you MUST know about comment spam, the adverse effects of uncontrolled comments, and how to stop spam comments on your WordPress blog.
What is Comment Spam?
Actually, the comments are a great way to engage website users, ask for their feedback, and build long-term relationships with them.
But the comment that does not add value to your blog, ask a relevant question, contribute honestly or complement your work is defined as comment spam.
Spammers and misguided noobs who believe in Blackhat SEO, use comment spam to make a large number of backlinks pointing to their websites.
A targeted keyword as an anchor text or username with a deep link to a specific article, irrelevant text, and heavy keyword-stuffing are clear signs of spam comments.
For short terms projects like event blogs (which you should not consider short-term), comment spam helps a lot in boosting the organic ranking of the targeted keywords.
Effects of Uncontrolled Blog Comment Spam
Uncontrolled spam comments are not only useless but also hurt your blog in various forms.
1. Poor User-Experience
I know every blogger who takes his profession seriously and works hard to create high-quality content. However, all great pieces of content are tainted with the stains of spam comments on your blog.
The irrelevant comments on a popular blog look weird and may result in a poor user experience if you don’t take preventive measures.
Regular visitors who have a genuine interest in your content or products may get annoyed or distracted. They will most probably bounce your page or label your site as spammy.
In the worst case, users may decide to stay away from your site and never come back.
2. Breaks Down Your Site In the Long Run
Today, spammers use automated bots for comment spam instead of doing it manually. You will notice a negative impact on your server resources and MySQL database.
In long run, the heavy comment spam may break down your site.
3. It can Affect Search Engine Ranking
Here is a conversation between renowned SEO/SEM author Jennifer Slegg and Gary Illyes.
@methode You’ve talked about types of UGC (ie. Q&As such as Stack Overflow & forums) being valuable quality content in the eyes of Google…
— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) April 27, 2016
@jenstar yep. In general if we see that there’s a healthy, thriving community on a site, that can help a lot
— Gary “鯨理／경리” Illyes (@methode) April 27, 2016
Remember, the comments are also considered as part of your blog post, and search engines treat them as an engagement signal.
However, if your site is infected with hundreds of spam comments, then major search engines, including Google and Bing, will lower their organic search ranking.
Apart from that, a huge number of spam comments may take time to load the page completely, which will hurt your technical SEO.
Spammy blog comments often contain links to low-quality sites that don’t make any sense. Sometimes, the referred domains may contain malware or illegal content.
This lowers down the trust and authority of your site, ultimately resulting in a drop in the organic search ranking of your blog.
How to Stop Spam Comments On WordPress Blog
It’s challenging to convince people not to spam your blog once they have decided to do so. However, you can add some security features to combat comment spam.
1. Remove Website Field From WordPress Comments
The comment spam exists for only a reason, i.e., SEO backlinks.
Every person related to the blogging and SEO industry wants to grow fast and acquire as many as high-quality links. Unfortunately, many people don’t focus on the quality of links and try to build a huge number of links without adding any value to the community.
And, comment spam is an easy and free method to get a ton of backlinks in a short period.
When someone fills up a website field in the WordPress comment section, it creates a backlink pointing to that website.
Blackhat SEOs take advantage of that to build spammy links using a targeted keyword as Name and add low-quality or irrelevant deep links in the Website/URL field.
Search engine bots crawl the comment section, and that’s why hiding a website field is a great way to fight manual comment spam.
Although it won’t help much if other people especially the competitors are using the automated bots, you’ll see a considerable drop in spam comments.
Here are a few ways to remove the website URL field from the WordPress comment form.
Adding Custom CSS
It’s the easiest and quick solution that you can use to hide the website field on your WordPress blog.
Go to Appearance >> Customize >> Additional CSS. Copy the following code and paste it there.
#commentform .comment-form-url {display:none;}
Using functions.php
You can disable the website URL field in the comment section by adding a few lines of code to the functions.php files of your WordPress theme.
Go to Appearance >> Editor and then select functions.php from the right sidebar. Scroll down to the bottom and add the code given below.
Click on Update File to save the changes, and you’ll see the website URL field is removed from the WordPress comment section.
Here is the code you need to copy & paste at the bottom of your theme’s functions.php file.
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'tu_add_comment_url_filter' );
function tu_add_comment_url_filter() {
add_filter( 'comment_form_default_fields', 'tu_disable_comment_url', 20 );
}
function tu_disable_comment_url($fields) {
unset($fields['url']);
return $fields;
}
Currently, I’m using the GeneratePress Premium WordPress theme, and this code is working correctly on my blog. If you have any problem, then you can ask for help from the customer support of your theme.
Important
Even a small mistake in editing the functions.php file of your core theme will break your site. So, make sure you have a backup of everything prior to making any changes to it.
2. Enable Inbuilt WordPress Comment Spam Protect Features
WordPress has amazing features to protect your site from spam comments, and you can enable them from the Discussion option under the Settings menu.
Ask Users to Register on Your Site Before Commenting
Many people may not like the registration process to comment on any blog. However, you’ll only receive comments from genuine users.
Also, ask them to fill in their real name and email address.
Enable Email Notifications
You can enable email notifications when someone posts a comment on your WordPress blog, or the comment is held for moderation.
It may annoy some people who are mostly busy with their important work but trust me it makes you alert.
Set Rules for Displaying the Comment
Displaying spam comments spoils the user experience. That’s why make sure all comments are manually approved before they actually appear on your WordPress blog.
Activate Moderation If the Comments Contain Links
The spam comments often contain one or more links in the content area itself. Adding a URL for reference is acceptable, but when someone posts a comment containing 2 or more links, then it’s a clear sign of the comment spam.
In such cases, you must activate the comment moderation to prevent the unwanted comments from appearing on your blog post.
Create a List of the Blacklisted Words
Spam comments often contain a lot of identifiable keywords. These keywords may include payday loans, porn, gambling, insurance, drugs & illegal health supplements, etc.
If you are getting comments containing such spammy words, then you can blacklist these keywords.
3. Activate Anti-spam Plugins
You can install anti-spam plugins to fight unwanted comments. Adding too many plugins can eat your server resources, but for non-techies, it’s the simplest solution out there.
Akismet is one of the best WordPress plugins to avoid spam comments. You can activate a Basic (free) plan and later upgrade to premium according to your needs.
Conclusion
Until search engines are considering Links as a major ranking factor, you’ll receive spam comments.
Turning off the comments isn’t the perfect solution; instead, it’s better to know how to stop spam comments on WordPress blogs.
Using WordPress plugins like Thrive Comments may inspire people to leave genuine comments and build a community that’s what we want as a blogger or digital marketer.
I’m sure you have liked this article, please share it with your peers. You can connect with us using social media channels.
And, don’t forget to tell us what method you’re using to stop comment spam.
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Fantastic publish, very informative.
I too get many spam comments, but Akismet takes care of it all. Thrive Comment plugin is also a good alternative in my opinion. I’ll give try to it in the next few days.
I went on vacation for 2 weeks and when I came back I found more than 1653 comments pending on my WordPress blog.
When I looked in depth, I got to know that only 38 comments were legitimate and the rest were comment spams.
Fortunately, I found your article on a Google plus community and I implemented some of the tips you have mentioned here in this article.
I have also installed the Thrive Comment Plugin which seems good fit for my site. Thanks for writing such a valuable article.