Spam Free WordPress Installation

Being a blogger it is fun, most of the time – creating a posts, interacting with visitors via comments, making new friends and getting new skills.

However, there is a big problem: spam, especially track-back spam.

My site is basically 4 installations of brilliant blogging platform – WordPress – so, finding combinations of settings and plugins which would make maintenance of spam as easy as possible was a must. After a lot of trial/error attempts, here is combination which works perfectly:

Aksimet

Aksimet (included in WordPress installation, no need for separate download / install) for regular comment spam. You have to register once at WordPress.Com in order to get Aksimet API key; once done that, you are all set.

Challenge

Challenge – instead of various CAPTCHA mechanism, this proved to be very efficient and less annoying for visitors.

Plugin simply asks basic mathematical questions, in order to check if is on other side of page human or robot (process).

However, warning: it is not compatible with WP-Cache – if you are using this highly effective caching system, you have to choose other options for comment approval.

Simple Trackback Validation Plugin

Finally, for TrackBack validation there is Simple Trackback Validation Plugin – simple and efficient system for fighting trackback spam, which is even worse than usual comment spam.

Time needed for installing and setting up those plugins is well spent time – instead of having 300+ daily spams, now I have 3 – 4 weekly and can dedicate to writing instead of spam fighting 🙂