Prevent Comment Spam from Damaging Your WordPress Website - Discourage Spammy Commenters by Having a Comment Policy

Strictly implement rel=nofollow in your blog comments. Do not worry, as it is enabled by default. Careful though; there are some plugins that will remove the rel=nofollow tag, for example the DoFollow plugin. You need to ensure that all links in the comment fields use rel=nofollow.

Below are some tips on how to discourage spammy commenters:

1. If your blog regularly attracts comments which are good, before any user can post a comment, have them read and agree to your comment policy.

2. Make sure your comment policy includes the following points:

a. In the name field, let them use their real name or nickname , strictly "no keywords" or "business related terms." (WordPress websites using the KeywordLuv plugin are an exception).

b. Have the comment directly convey substantial information related your post. Deny approval to comments that contains:

Thanks, Great Post!

Hey nice blog!

Great and wonderful research, thank you for sharing this.

You must have done some hard work in coming up with this post.

Hi, thanks for the post, just dropping by.

If you see unmoderated comments (those that are already screened by wp-spam free still need to be moderated) that look like the ones above, disapprove them.

3. State in your policy that you need to moderate comments.

4. State in your policy that links to offensive or completely unrelated websites will be removed -- and follow through.

How do you separate the good from the spammy commenters?

There are some brilliant commenters that add life, insights and knowledge to your existing post. Keep them loyal to your blog. Below are some of the tips that I recommend:

First, you can include a note in your comment policy that the top commenters will be rewarded with an editorial post (written by yourself) about their blog with a link pointing to it.

Second, there are an increasing number of WordPress users using KeywordLuv (http://www.scratch99.com/wordpress-plugin-keywordluv/ ). This is a WordPress plugin that can be used to reward good commenters by having a dofollow link pointing to their website. You can consider using it on your blog for the same purpose.

Indeed, this can be a good plugin to encourage blog comments and attracts a good commenter as long as:

1. The comment is original, related and substantial.

2. The person strictly uses an original name in addition to their targeted keywords (for example: Peter from Florida Laptop Repairs says:)

3. The anchor text should be perfectly relevant to your page's content.

4. The linked website is clean and directly related to the blog post's content.

5. Since this system is susceptible to spam, I recommend that this system should be entirely moderated before any comment is approved to ensure its quality and value.

As a summary, spammy commenters cannot penetrate WordPress blogs as long as the following is true:

1.You implement basic guidelines in your commenting policy to prevent spam (outlined above).

2.You enable Akismet.

3.You moderate comments.

4.You use Wp-Spamfree.

5.Most of all, while you are rigid in combating spam comments, you also reward good commenters.