Spammers can cause a headache for WordPress users. You are trying to run a successful website through WordPress and even without attempting to increase your blog traffic, you are receiving traffic from automated bots and spammers. In fact, over half of web traffic is not even human because non-human traffic continues to increase.

While non-human traffic increases, it’s taking away from the authentic traffic of real people that want to check out your website. It makes it difficult when web bots are being easily built and they are causing spam to increase more and more. What can you do about this and is there a way to really stop spammers on your WordPress website?

What are my options?

You can use a free, anti-spam solution which will help counteract the problem. These are effective ways to decrease the spam but they take time to integrate and maintain on your site. Start with some free anti-spam options to protect your WordPress site with choices including Akismet, Antispam Bee and WP Spam-Shield Anti-Spam.

The WP Spam-Shield Anti-Spam is a popular choice that works with all popular contact form plugins, subscriptions and WooCommerce plugin. It can protect you from annoying spam bots and human spam, plus it will stop registration spam. It will deal with spam before it hits your database and it will work to defend your site somewhat against SQL injections or XSS vulnerabilities. You can also count on it to work with JS/Cookies Anti-Spam Layer.

The Antispam Bee is free to users, even commercial projects, and it works to differentiate Spam IPs and authorized commentators. It doesn’t require registration for use and won’t store personal data. The plugin will support auto deletion of spam and selective country blocking. Your comments will only be allowed in one language.

Akismet is another great free option and it’s the default for WordPress sites. There is no cost for this plugin and it will auto check all of your comments and filter the spam out. You can see the history of each comment and permit the user to check if a comment was cleared by the plugin. It will work in 42 languages. Since it caps at 50,000 checks for comment spam, you’ll have to either start paying $5 per month or you can add on a different plugin option.

What spam options are for sale?

If you don’t trust the idea of a free anti-spam solution and want to pay for something premium, check out the Anti-Spam by Clean Talk. You’ll have Akismet by default with your WordPress site but you can upgrade to something premium like this for only $8 per year! They will handle up to 2 million spam check requests daily and 99.8% is considered spam.

This cloud-based service not only stops comments but it will stop spam registrations, spam mail through your contact forms and spam created by trackbacks. You also won’t have to worry about spam orders, email subscriptions or spam in your widgets. It uses no CAPTCHA which is a math-based, human/bot testing technique to detect and stop your spam.

The free anti-spam options do this as well but they need more admin moderation than the premium options. If you’re trying to save time, go with the premium anti-spam option. Plus, the anti-spam checks will deter visitors by ruining their experience and you don’t want your users to decide not to leave comments on your site because of this.

This is also a great option for eCommerce businesses that are selling digital products through WooCommerce because it will filter out your spam reviews and spam bot registrations. It’s compatible with most WordPress form plugins so it will be a seamless transition if you decide to upgrade to a premium option from your default anti-spam that’s already installed. You can relax too because their false positive rate is at 0.001% so you’re not going to have legitimate comments flagged for spam.

It might be smart to upgrade to a premium service if you find the free options not working hard enough or the free use of it become a paid membership. That is the best way to stop spammers on your WordPress website.