10 Best Anti-Spam Plugins for WordPress

Spam is a common problem for bloggers using WordPress as content management system. Spam can come from comments, pingback, trackback or even from contact from submission. WordPress attracts too many spam as it supports HTML codes in comment form and spammers use this feature to get links from your website. To encourage spamming there are lots of auto comment software available in market and the developers promise boost in ranking.

Spammers attacks on your blog increases system resource usage and slow down your blog. Number of spam comments increases as your blog gets more authority. If you are not using any automated spam protection system for blog, then you have to waste valuable time deleting spam. In this post I’ve  mention 10 leading anti spam plugins used by most of the WordPress users.

1. Akismet

This is a preinstalled official plugin by WordPress.com team. This plugin very simple and easy to use for new users of  WordPress. To get started you just have to grab an API code from Akismet.com. There are both free and premium plans available for bloggers. Spam protection provided by this plugin is limited to hiding spam comments, it does not provide advances features like blocking ip  address of spammer or analyze type of spam comments. There are some other drawbacks of Akismet like blocking of normal comments, increasing database size with spam record etc.

2. Math Comment Spam Protection

Spam bots have not become too smart to solve mathematical problems and this plugin is based on this concept. After installing this plugin from WordPress repository, it will add a mathematical question in comment from section. When a visitor wants to make a comment he/she has to solve the mathematical problem correctly for validation. Basically simple mathematical problems like addition and subtraction are asked, so you don’t have to worry.

3. Comment Spam Stopper

Comment spam stopper is a re-Captcha based anti-spam tool. This plugin is very lite plugin and does not affect loading time of your website very much. It uses Javascript based validation methods to ensure the required fields in the comment form have been filled with appropriate information. As a special feature this plugin turns off CAPTCHA field for logged in users.

4. reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is image based verification method used by most of the leading websites like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter to fight spam. You can avail the same features by installing reCAPTCHA from WordPress plugin directory. It uses an image of words from old books containing some letters that are designed so only humans can read it not the bots. It also help to digitize old books as from the two words reCAPTCHA only knows one and you are digitizing the second one.

5. Anti-spam

This is my all time favourite plugin as it doesn’t require CAPTCHA or any kind of configuration. Anti-spam is fully discreet tool with a javascript validation for  comments. I’m using it on all of blogs and never faced a single spam comment after installing it. Very simple to use just activate and forget spam for ever. It is fully compatible with WordPress v3.9.1.

6. Spam Free

Spam Free is a powerful CAPTCHA free anti-spam plugin for WordPress blog. It can remove spam comments, trackbacks and also pingbacks. The best thing is that it is CAPTCHA free and can also protect spammy contact form entries. It also comes with a blocked spam counter in the dashboard.

7. WP-HashCash

It is a CAPTCHA based anti-spam plugin that claims to be 100% successful in blocking all spam comments. WP-HashCash also promises that no real comment is blocked. As a bonus this plugin is powerful enough to block all trackback and pingback spams. WP-HashCash is “100% standards compliant XHTML 1.1 and works with both jQuery and Prototype.”

8. Disqus

Actually Disqus is not an anti-spam plugin, but I have listed it here for its reputation rating system. Disqus is originally a comment system with social login option and a powerful comment spam detection system. It rates users according to their activity on other Disqus enabled websites and alerts you if the user is submitting spam comments.

9. bcSpamBlock

It’s a JavaScript-based anti-spam plugin that uses JavaScript to filter out spam quietly and discretely. Users without JavaScript enabled on their browsers must prove their legitimacy via copy-&-paste CAPTCHA exercise. This is great plugin but sometimes it can cause trouble for some visitors.

10. Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin

GASP is a good and easy to use anti-spam plugin for users. It adds a check box just above the submit button and asks to check it if you are not a spammer.

You can also fight spam problem without installing any of these plugins, but the process requires some knowledge about .htaccess file editing and commonly used terms by spammers. I’ll talk about that methods in another post. Till then keep visiting my blog and don’t forget to drop your valuable feedbacks.