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How to Stop Spam Registrations and Comments on Your Portal

If there’s one annoyance you’ve probably heard from your website operators, it might be managing spam comments. They log in to begin content development, and before they can create a new post, they have a list of new “comments” to filter through in the dashboard, and many of them are spam. Others are, thankfully, real

If spam registrations are keeping you awake at night (literally), consider some newer spam filtering tools

If there’s one annoyance you’ve probably heard from your website operators, it might be managing spam comments. They log in to begin content development, and before they can create a new post, they have a list of new “comments” to filter through in the dashboard, and many of them are spam. Others are, thankfully, real people.

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But spam commenters are sly. They can disguise themselves to look like real comments. You’ve probably seen comments like these:

Have you ever thought about adding a little bit more than just your articles? I mean, what you say is important and everything.

Sounds legit, right? Until you read the author, who calls himself Premier Village Kem Beach resort phu quoc.

I want to express my respect for your kindness in support of men and women that have the need for guidance on this topic.

Thanks so much for your comment, yeezy shoes.

I precisely wished to say thanks yet again. I’m not certain the things that I could possibly have accomplished in the absence of the aspects shared by you concerning such a concern. It was a difficult dilemma for me personally, nevertheless witnessing this specialized technique you solved that took me to weep over delight.

You almost had me there, fitflops-saleclearance.us.com.

Because it seems no matter how good a spam filter is, some spam comments do get through, and spambots just keep getting smarter (and sites like Fiverr that pay people to leave comments for inbound links just keep getting richer).

And if you, or someone on your team ever let these comments lapse for too long without monitoring, your spam filter may have been re-trained to accept them.

Additionally, we know of more than one client who has recently been attacked by international bots who subscribed to their email list, which meant they needed to manually sift through their email list, sorting out the bad email addresses. I don’t need to tell you this is not an ideal situation, but it’s something that will occur more frequently as spambots get smarter. To stop spam registrations and comments and to combat these bots, your website needs to get smarter as well.

How to stop spam registrations and comments

Our goal when building and maintaining our Haven Nexus System is to keep a combination of best-of-breed third-party software and the proprietary components necessary to support the Mequoda Method. It supports more than 100 system components including 40+ third-party plugins and applications that have been tested and vetted by our engineering team.

Every dollar you spend sending email to a spambot, is money lost. So researching plugins to stop spam registrations is a great idea.

The standard plugin most publishers start with is Akismet. It’s the standard spam plugin, but it does take training it. And if you do happen to lapse in training it to know what’s spam and what’s not, you’ll find that more and more spam comments will come in. It’s ideal for developers because it can be integrated into other plugins for contact and registration forms.

A new plugin we are loving, for those who are struggling with their existing spam filter, is the CleanTalk WordPress plugin. Gold Members who have implemented it are having great success with combating spambot registrations. We haven’t tested its features for combating spam comments, but it has 1,700+ 5-star reviews in WordPress’ plugin directory.

How are you currently combating spam comments and registrations? If you’re using a plugin or tactic for filtering, let our readers know in the comments.

By Don Nicholas

Founder & Executive Publisher

Don Nicholas serves as Executive Publisher for Food Gardening Network and GreenPrints. He is responsible for all creative, technical, and financial aspects of these multiplatform brands. As senior member of the editorial team, he provides structural guidance, sets standards, and coordinates activities with the technology and business teams. Don is an active gardener whose favorite crops include tomatoes, basil, blueberries, and corn. He and his wife Gail live and work in southern Massachusetts surrounded by forests, family farms, cranberry bogs, and nearby beaches. Don is also the Founder of Mequoda Systems, LLC, which operates and supports numerous online communities including I Like Crochet, I Like Knitting, and We Like Sewing.

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