Spam is a real nuisance in all forms and it’s an unfortunate fact that WordPress is not excluded from Spam attacks and ‘Splogging’. We run some pretty large sires and stopping Spam has been a regular preocupation. The following WordPress plugins are in our opinion the most effective at reducing spam on your site:-
WP-Ban – Free Plugin
This is a relatively basic, but effective IP banning system that will stop regular spam attacks from the same offenders. You can ban users by IP, IP Range, host name, user agent and referrer url from visiting your WordPress’s blog.
Entering IPs is easy, but we’d like to see it more automated from the users list. Currently you have to copy the users IP into WP-Ban.
Good For: Persistent spamming from the same users/IP range
Where to get it: This plugin is available from the WordPress repository WP-Ban
Moderation – Premium Plugin by wpmu
Moderation is a leading WordPress plugin for Moderating posts, comments and blogs across a WordPress Multisite Network. It allows you to moderate users yourself, but also a really nice feature is that other users can report posts on your behalf. You can then deal with the spammer in your WordPress Multisite admin.
Good For: Dealing with spammers across a WordPress Multisite
Where to get it: This plugin and loads of other great WordPress plugins is available from the wpmu web site
WangGuard – Free for Personal Sites
Other than its interesting name ‘WangGuard’ is a new plugin that is showing bucket-loads of promise. We’ve started using it on a number of sites and we must say that even at this early stage we are extremely impressed with the breadth of features and ease of use. WanGuard offers protection against sploggers and spam users registration, is fully WordPress,WordPress MU ,BuddyPress and bbPress 2.0 compatible.
We really love the wizard that automates the removal of Spammers / Sploggers based on the WanGuard database and also your marking them as ‘Spam’ or ‘Splogger’. Additionally something we’ve been looking to see for some is the ability to mark users as spammers directly from the WordPress users list, or alternatively via the WanGuard users list. This is a killer time saving feature putting this system firmly at the top of our list with ‘Moderation‘.
Good For: All WordPress sites
Where to get it: This plugin is available from the WordPress repository WangGuard
Also Worthy of Praise
BuddyPress Moderation – Plugin for moderation of buddypress communities, it adds a ‘report this’ link to every content so members can help admin finding inappropriate content.
Spammer Blocker – This plugin prevents users from commenting or viewing your website if a comment of theirs has been marked as spam.
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