When starting a WordPress site, the Spam starts as well. You will start getting spam in your comments, registrations and contact forms. There will be trackback and pingback spam. You will get unwanted messages through contact forms. Spammers are getting smarter, and it gets hard to filter out all the spam on your own. That's why we're about to show you the best anti-spam plugins for WordPress that will help you clean up your site and make it even safer.

To give you a better image of how much of a problem spam really is, we suggest that you take a look at this spam statistics. Although the number of spam messages has been decreasing from the end of 2014, there are still more than 50% of spam messages found in all emails on the Internet. Do you think the number are better when it comes to WordPress comments?

A few days ago, we showed you that it's possible to stop spam just by tweaking a few WordPress settings. Unfortunately, it's practically impossible to stop spam completely. You can manually delete comments, pingbacks, and trackbacks. You can even disable them and manually block specific spammers. That will help, but you remain a target for spammers all over the world.

When you realize that combating spam is a never-ending battle, you will want help from some of the best anti-spam plugins for WordPress.

Akismet

PRICE: Free

Without a doubt, Akismet is the most popular anti-spam plugin for WordPress. With more than three million active installs and way over fifty million overall downloads, it's actually one of the most popular plugins for WordPress ever. Akismet has become a core part of WordPress which means that you will have it installed on your site the very moment you finish the WordPress installation.

The plugin is free for personal use. It will help you combat comment spam automatically so that you can relax and worry about other things on your blog. Each comment goes through Akismet, and each will have a status history so that you can quickly check it out. Akismet will show you URLs in the comment body, something that will help you quickly identify the spam messages.

To set it up, you will need a free account and a unique API key. If you want to use the plugin for commercial purposes, want support and some extra features like stats, malware scanner, and backups, you should know that there is also a premium version of the plugin.

Antispam Bee

PRICE: Free

When fighting spam, you could use some help of a superhero. In that case, why not go for a super bee? Antispam Bee is one the most popular anti-spam plugins for WordPress which is also completely free. The plugin works fast, it is very easy to configure and extremely productive.

Antispam Bee will watch over the comments for you. By trusting your comments to this plugin, you can expect to get rid of all spam from your WordPress site. Antispam Bee can block commenters from specific countries, and you can even allow new comments only in languages you selected. The plugin will look for trust-approved commenters, and it can learn to trust those with Gravatar images.

Antispam Bee will watch over IP addresses of commenters for you and search for local spam database to find previous spammers.

It's important to know how many spammers get caught in the Antispam Bee's hive, so you get to see statistics on the dashboard that are updated on a daily basis. You can even opt in for email notifications, and do much more.

WP-SpamShield

PRICE: Free

If you want to forget about spam on your WordPress site entirely, you should take a look at WP-SpamShield. The developers of the plugin have made sure that everything is automatic and that you don't have to deal with spam ever again.

Instead of labeling spam comments, the plugin will stop it even before it gets to you. To make sure even the smartest spammers don't get through, WP-SpamShield uses the JavaScript/Cookies and the Algorithmic Anti-Spam protection layers. By combining the technologies, this free plugin can stop both bots and human spammers.

Another great thing about this plugin is that it doesn't use captchas. While using WP-SpamShield, everything will look normal; your visitors will be able to post comments, and you'll be able to work on your site without having to worry how many spam comments have been published on your site.

Anti-spam

PRICE: Free

The Anti-spam plugin bears a simple name, and it works in the same way. This free WordPress plugin doesn't have a settings page. You install it, activate it and forget about it. Anti-spam will then work in the background and stop spam for you.

There are no moderation queues – all spam comments will be immediately deleted. The developer clearly doesn't like captchas; on the plugin's official site in the repository, you can find a funny video about the technology. That's why this plugin does not use captchas.

Before you decide to use Anti-spam, you should know that it works only with comments. If you're looking for an overall anti-spam solution, we suggest any other plugin from the list. If you want more from the plugin, take a look at the premium version.

Spam Protection by CleanTalk

PRICE: $8 per year

Although the plugin itself is free, Spam Protection by CleanTalk is a premium cloud-based anti-spam service, and it deserves its place on the list of the best anti-spam plugins for WordPress. It will stop spam comments, registrations, emails, orders, bookings, subscriptions, surveys, WooCommerce, etc.

Spam Protection by CleanTalk allows you to label spam as such or delete it altogether. It works with practically all comment plugins.

WordPress Zero Spam

PRICE: Free

Although it doesn't have as many active installations as the previously mentioned plugins, WordPress Zero Spam is still an excellent choice for bloggers.

The plugin doesn't use captcha to differentiate humans from bots. There are no moderation queues. The developers claim that the plugin will stop 99.9% of spam registrations and comments. WordPress Zero Spam will let you block spammy IP addresses and even extend the plugin with different action hooks.

Want to log details about the spammers? You got it.

No matter which one of the anti-spam plugins for WordPress you choose, it will help you fight spam and you should have one installed. Don't forget to check several techniques to stop spam without plugins and combine them with the plugin of your choice.

Which anti-spam plugin do you use? Have you tried the others? Tell us your spam experience in the comments below.

The post Best anti-spam plugins for WordPress to keep your site clean and safe appeared first on WP Loop.