WordPress Comment Spam Stopper plugin
Everyone hates spam, comment spam especially within wordpress. Sure there are plugins out there to reduce what shows up on your blog, a key player being Askimet, but I felt sorry for poor askimet, having to deal with literally thousands of spam messages.
Spamming is a common problem, I was getting (at least) 1000 spam messages a week, and I was sick of it. I’m sure also having so many spam messages stored in the database (even if identified by askimet) must have a speed impact on your blog.
Therefore I have created a simple solution to stopping spam at the source: asking a simple question that bots are too stupid to know in the comment form. I know only get about 10 spams per week, rather than 1000!
WordPress Comment Spam Stopper plugin
The whole idea to this plugin is to keep spammer robots from posting on your blog, reducing the space taken by spam messages in the database, and reducing the stress of being a spam magnet.
This plugin adds a field to the comment form which much be answered in order to post.
You can ask anything, keep it simple and obvious, e.g. Is the sky Green? NO!. Doing this will stop stupid bots from being able to post.
It only shows up when you are logged out, so you dont have to fill it in if your an admin. On top of this, it also adds javascript validation to the form to ensure the required fields are filled in.
To see it in action…make a comment! I’m using the plugin in this blog, obviously.
I’d like to thank Mike Cherim at http://green-beast.com/ who originally added this spam question to the WordPress PHP contact form plugin.
Get it now!
You can get the latest version from the wordpress plugin database; Download it here!
Installation
- Unzip and upload the php file to your wordpress plugin directory
- Activate the plugin
Configuration
Open the plugin file in a text editor and follow the instructions there in order to change the anti-spam question and disable auto-inserting the anti-spam field (useful if using a custom comments template).
If you are using a template which does not call wp_head() in the header file, you will need to open the plugin in a text editor, find the css styles/JS include and paste these into your header file manually.
Licence
WordPress Comment Spam Stopper plugin v2 © Copyright 2007-current. All rights reserved.
Mike Jolley
You are free to use this application but may not redistribute it without written permission.
Use of this application will be at your own risk. No guarantees or warranties are made directly or implied.
The creators cannot and will not be liable or held accountable for damages, direct or consequential.
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Sammy Spam says:
Im a silly Spambot, short and stout.
Comment made on December 20, 2008 at 6:48 am
Mike Jolley says:
I have not tested Wp2.7 yet – have not gotten round to it.
@Sammy Spam – may I point out that a spam bot is a computer program which posts automatically, not an idiot with too much time on their hands :p
Comment made on December 20, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Sam says:
This is brilliant, good work dude.
Comment made on December 23, 2008 at 6:56 pm
rich says:
asdsa
Comment made on December 25, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Rich says:
I’m trying to implement this plugin, but for some reason when I put in the answer of hot without making any changes to the php file it states it’s the incorrect answer ??
Comment made on December 26, 2008 at 3:10 am
Jim Jaworski says:
Yes, I just installed the spam-stopper plugin to my WordPress 2.5 setup.
Will this plugin work with my version of WordPress, or do I need to upgrade?
I am getting the same thing happening to me as “Rich” from December 26, 2008 says…no matter what I type Hot or hot it will not accept those answers.
Comment made on January 8, 2009 at 7:53 am
Nikki says:
Will you be fixing this for 2.7?
Cheers
Comment made on January 28, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Not a bot says:
Didn’t work on my blog
Comment made on February 3, 2009 at 6:19 am
GA says:
just to try
Comment made on February 18, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Ga says:
It’s a reaaly nice plugin!!…but it’s not working on WP 2.7: I type hot it does not accept the answer….
How can I fix it??
Thanks!;-)
Comment made on February 18, 2009 at 12:45 pm
free games says:
I’m new user of wordpress and this blog is so effective for me.
thanks.
Comment made on March 5, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Erica Douglass says:
There is a simple fix to make this plugin work in 2.7 Comment #100 – Tony – said t but I want to repost.
100 – Tony says:
I downloaded the latest version and found it did not work at all.
You need to add the following to the function WPcommentSpam_head()
global $aspamq;
Then it works like a dream
– Thanks, it works now on WP 2.7! I have it installed and running on my blog at erica.biz.
-Erica
Comment made on March 9, 2009 at 4:02 am
Billy loves himself too much today says:
hi there
Comment made on March 11, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Mike Jolley says:
@Billy loves himself too much today: As ive stated many many times – this plugin stops spam bots not idiot posters.
Comment made on March 11, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Andrew Lisle says:
Thanks for this, I’m SICK of spam and this really helps. Cheers.
Comment made on May 19, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Tony says:
WordPress Plug-in directory shows that your plugin is compatible with WordPress including version 2.6
I am using version 2.7 – will your plug-in work with my version too?
Thanks for such a great plugin.
Tony
Comment made on May 21, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Mike Jolley says:
@Tony: It has not been updated in a while but it still works on my blog and that’s wp 2.7.
Only potential bug has a fix in comment #123 above.
Comment made on May 21, 2009 at 1:04 pm
DealsZoom says:
I really hard work to kill all spams on my blog and now I get this plugin. Ok, I’m testing it.
Many Thanks & Have a nice day.
Comment made on May 25, 2009 at 7:56 am
Maxxy says:
I hate spam too. It’s a boring job to remove them. Someone put many links like v..i..a..gra and anything that they want to market. So this is a great tool to kill them easily!
Comment made on May 26, 2009 at 12:23 pm
rap says:
Thanks for such a great plugin.
Comment made on June 15, 2009 at 9:17 pm