{"id":28407,"date":"2019-08-26T11:52:51","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T09:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/?p=28407"},"modified":"2025-03-24T15:52:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T13:52:20","slug":"how-to-prevent-comment-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/website\/how-to-prevent-comment-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"How to prevent comment spam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just as you can get spam messages in your inbox, people (or more often bots) will leave spam comments with unsolicited advertising on your website blog or comment fields. However, unlike email spam where you are the target, comment spam generally targets search engines.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Comment spam refers to a broad category of spambot or spam postings that abuse web-based forms on websites. Unsolicited advertisements are posted as comments on forums, blogs, wikis and online guestbooks.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Why are they spamming me?<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spammers want to get better search rankings or lure unsuspecting visitors to dubious and malicious sites. By spamming they attempt to get more links and therefore positively affect their site\u2019s search rankings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In most cases, it is not a personal attack against you; rather it\u2019s a systematic process that targets many blogs, using automated spambots.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Effects of comment spam<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The effects of comment spam are usually <strong>high server load and large database tables<\/strong>, which can have a detrimental effect on all users on a shared server.\u00a0 For this reason comment spam contravenes our Acceptable Use Policy and website owners need to put measures in place to ensure that comment spam is minimised.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This type of spam can be harmful to your site in several ways including:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Low-quality content (ie.s spam) on some parts of a website can impact the whole site\u2019s Google rankings.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Spam can distract and annoy your users and lower the reputation of your site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unintended traffic from unrelated content on your site can slow down your site and raise bandwidth costs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google might remove or demote pages overrun with user-generated spam to protect the quality of our search results.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Content dropped by spammers can lead to malicious sites that can negatively affect your users.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to prevent comment spam<\/span><\/h2>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Add Google reCAPTCHA<\/span><\/h3>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-28425\" src=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"87\" srcset=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1.png 1067w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1-300x49.png 300w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1-1024x168.png 1024w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1-768x126.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 529px) 100vw, 529px\" \/><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">See <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/intro\/v3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/intro\/v3.html<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ReCAPTCHA is an advanced form of CAPTCHA, which is a technology used to differentiate between robots and human users. CAPTCHA is an acronym for \u201cCompletely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google makes it easy for users to verify their identity by simply clicking on the checkbox button.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For spambots, this technology is quite hard to bypass because when Google detects a spam bot, it gives them a much harder challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use plugins for WordPress sites<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">See:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/beginners-guide\/vital-tips-and-tools-to-combat-comment-spam-in-wordpress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 vital tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Combating_Comment_Spam\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Combating_Comment_Spam<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false,"plain":"<span >Just as you can get spam messages in your inbox, people (or more often bots) will leave spam comments with unsolicited advertising on your website blog or comment fields. However, unlike email spam where you are the target, comment spam generally targets search engines.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >Comment spam refers to a broad category of spambot or spam postings that abuse web-based forms on websites. Unsolicited advertisements are posted as comments on forums, blogs, wikis and online guestbooks.<\/span>\r\n<h3><span >Why are they spamming me?<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<span >Spammers want to get better search rankings or lure unsuspecting visitors to dubious and malicious sites. By spamming they attempt to get more links and therefore positively affect their site\u2019s search rankings.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >In most cases, it is not a personal attack against you; rather it\u2019s a systematic process that targets many blogs, using automated spambots.<\/span>\r\n<h2><span >Effects of comment spam<\/span><\/h2>\r\n<span >The effects of comment spam are usually <strong>high server load and large database tables<\/strong>, which can have a detrimental effect on all users on a shared server.\u00a0 For this reason comment spam contravenes our Acceptable Use Policy and website owners need to put measures in place to ensure that comment spam is minimised.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >This type of spam can be harmful to your site in several ways including:<\/span>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li ><span >Low-quality content (ie.s spam) on some parts of a website can impact the whole site\u2019s Google rankings.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li ><span >Spam can distract and annoy your users and lower the reputation of your site.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li ><span >Unintended traffic from unrelated content on your site can slow down your site and raise bandwidth costs.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li ><span >Google might remove or demote pages overrun with user-generated spam to protect the quality of our search results.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li ><span >Content dropped by spammers can lead to malicious sites that can negatively affect your users.<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h2><span >How to prevent comment spam<\/span><\/h2>\r\n<h3><span >Add Google reCAPTCHA<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<h3><span > <img class=\"alignnone wp-image-28425\" src=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/recaptcha-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"529\" height=\"87\" \/><\/span><\/h3>\r\n<span >See <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/intro\/v3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span >https:\/\/www.google.com\/recaptcha\/intro\/v3.html<\/span><\/a>\r\n\r\n<span >ReCAPTCHA is an advanced form of CAPTCHA, which is a technology used to differentiate between robots and human users. CAPTCHA is an acronym for \u201cCompletely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart\u201d.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >Google makes it easy for users to verify their identity by simply clicking on the checkbox button.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >For spambots, this technology is quite hard to bypass because when Google detects a spam bot, it gives them a much harder challenge.<\/span>\r\n<h3><span >Use plugins for WordPress sites<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<span >See:<\/span>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li ><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpbeginner.com\/beginners-guide\/vital-tips-and-tools-to-combat-comment-spam-in-wordpress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span >12 vital tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress<\/span><\/a><\/li>\r\n \t<li ><a href=\"https:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Combating_Comment_Spam\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span >https:\/\/codex.wordpress.org\/Combating_Comment_Spam<\/span><\/a><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comment spam refers to a broad category of spambot or spam postings which abuse web based forms on websites. This article will show how to prevent it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lsx_disable_title":"0","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[22808,22796,22799,22802,22805],"topics":[],"class_list":["post-28407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-website","tag-spambot","tag-comment-spam","tag-spamming","tag-captcha","tag-recaptcha"],"acf":[],"additional_meta":{"category_title":[{"term_id":166,"name":"Website","slug":"website","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":166,"taxonomy":"category","description":"About your Website(s)","parent":0,"count":169,"filter":"raw","term_order":"120","cat_ID":166,"category_count":169,"category_description":"About your Website(s)","cat_name":"Website","category_nicename":"website","category_parent":0}],"tag_title":[{"term_id":22808,"name":"spambot","slug":"spambot","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22808,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"545"},{"term_id":22796,"name":"comment spam","slug":"comment-spam","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22796,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"546"},{"term_id":22799,"name":"spamming","slug":"spamming","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22799,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"547"},{"term_id":22802,"name":"CAPTCHA","slug":"captcha","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22802,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"548"},{"term_id":22805,"name":"ReCAPTCHA","slug":"recaptcha","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":22805,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"549"}]},"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"janine","author_link":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/author\/janine\/","author_avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/aa7eb245072caa276e9df6888f1456c90cbf5304bea0210152b08c26141c638e?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28407"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=28407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}