Top 5 Anti-Spamming Plugins for WordPress

Fakhri Server Hosting July 5, 2017

Got a WordPress-website built for your business? Next what? Definitely, it’s time to fire on all cylinders to reach out to your target audience by various means of digital marketing. You are not alone. We all want business and that comes when we get traffic on our websites. But along with traffic, your website might also get inundated with spam texts, particularly, through blog comments and contact form. Spams, when unchecked, can lead to website crash or failure as spam content is often loaded with malware or viruses. Besides performance, spamming increases the risk quotient of data breach. So, checking spam is in the greater interest of your consumers and the business itself. Let’s talk about top 5 Anti-spamming plugins for WordPress.

WordPress is the most popular content management system preferred by tech and non-tech users alike. It helps build an easy-to-use, scalable and flexible CMS. Root Info Solutions, a web and mobile app development company, records that WordPress has a 60 million and growing user base.

Top 5 Anti-Spamming Plugins

1. Akismet

Over 3 million installs, and an impressive 5 out of 5 rating answer all arguments regarding its first position. This plugin cross-checks the comments against the Akismet Web service and presents a 360-degree report about the vulnerability level associated with comments. Learning the demographics, IP, and other aspects, you can further strengthen your firewall to block e-Threats.

Moderators get an easy-to-manage dashboard to analyze comments and take actions (approve, discard, put on hold). Interestingly, users can have a complete access to the dashboard features and tools from anywhere using any mobile and non-mobile device.

Plan and Pricing
Basic (Free): Spam protection for personal sites and blogs.
Plus ($5/month): To help protect personal and commercial websites.
Enterprise ($50/month): Competent to check spamming against large networks or multi-site installations.

2. WP-SpamShield Anti-Spam

With over 100,000+ installs and 4.5 rating, this anti-spam plugin is an effective way to do away with automated or bot spamming as well as human spamming. It isolates and removes comment spam, contact form spam, registration spam and trackback spam. The two spam checking layers are:

(a) JavaScript/Cookies Anti-Spam Layer

The functionality of this layer is extensively dependent on JavaScript and cookies combination. This can filter out human and bot spamming.

(b) Algorithmic Anti-Spam Layer

Spambots that somehow deceive the first layer are picked by the Algorithmic Anti-Spam layer that is built with more than 100 advanced filters.
Pricing: Free

3. WordPress Zero Spam

Bagging a record 20, 000 plus installs and 5 out of 5 rating, this anti-spam plugin deserves a desk thumping. It can identify and block registration spam and spam in comments automatically. Interestingly, no additional config or setup is required. Just a WordPress developer needs to install and activate it. Key features include:

Compatibility with caching plugins boosts website performance
Blocks suspected IPs from ever seeing your site
Extends the plugin with action hooks
Theme & plugin integration for any form on your site
Advanced settings for complete controlPricing: Free

4. Antispam Bee

Available for free, compliant with European data privacy standards, and bestowed with the trust of over 200,000 WordPress community users, Antispam Bee is a strong contender for this place. Rated 5 out of 5, it comes harsh on spammy content plaguing a WordPress blog or website. Key features include:

Recognises approved commenters
Recognises commenters with a Gravatar
Considers the comment time
Allows comments only in a certain language
Blocks or allows commenters from certain countries
Treats BBCode as spam
Validates the IP address of commenters
Searches local spam database for commenters previously marked as spammers
Matches against a public anti-spam database
Notifies admins by e-mail about incoming spam
Deletes existing spam after n days
Makes available insights on spam detection rate, blocked spam comments, etc. on dashboard

5. WPBruiser

Installed over 10, 000 times, this plugin, formerly known as GoodBye Captcha, has received an impressive 5 out of 5 rating by the WordPress users. It has got effective cool algorithms that detect and isolate spam-bot signups and spam comments without puzzling webmasters with any annoying and hard to read captcha images. It also provides protection against brute force attacks.

Pricing: Free

More Plugins Worth Considering

Spam Destroyer
Installed over 7000 times, this anti-spamming plugin for WordPress has been rated as 4.5 by the WordPress Community. This is an easy-to-use plugin that not just checks the spam problems but also contributes towards the website’s performance by reducing the server load time.