Ask anyone with a WordPress website, and they will tell you that they have (at least in the past) fought a losing battle with comment spam and profanity. It matters less whether yours is a small site or a mammoth platform, spammers and profane people will mess it up for you in two major ways:
- Firstly, profane content will send your prospects away
- And secondly, spammers will taint your SEO rankings on Google
On profane content, excessive use of, let’s say, adult language and cursives will decrease sales and send away potential partners. Nobody wants to collaborate with profanity. Nobody.
Comment spam on the other hand ruins your rank in Google, sending your site (hence products) to oblivion. Spam scares human visitors as well, which leads to nothing but a very thin bank balance.
In this post, we will talk about ten (10) spam blocking and profanity filter filter plugins. You will be able to improve your SEO rankings, provide a richer user experience, and ultimately reap better rewards for your efforts.
Enjoy!
Top 5 WordPress Profanity Filter Plugins
WebPurify Profanity Filter Plugin
When you come across good UGC content moderation, you know it immediately. WebPurify profanity filter is a great solution against profanity.
This is why:
You needn’t create a blacklist as the plugin comes packed with an extensive multi-lingual blacklist
It’s fully automatic, and will nab profane words as soon as they appear.
The premium version gives you even more goodies. You can take advantage of image and video moderation to regulate visual content on your website.
Download WebPurify Profanity Filter Plugin
WP Content Filter Plugin
This profanity filter plugin has grown smarter by the update. For instance, the plugin is intelligent enough not to strikeout “pot” in “potbelly” if/and when you flag “pot”.
Another thing, you can replace all letters in the profane word or retain either the first or last letter. For example, “pot” would appear as **t, P*t or p**.
Additionally, you can choose to filter different areas on your website i.e. comment section, tags and even post titles.
Word Filter Plus Plugin
This plugin goes beyond a profanity filter. I will explain. Instead of just replacing letters with wildcard characters, you can replace the profane word with a word of your own.
Just download and install the plugin. Then access it via Tools -> Word Filter Plus, and set your filters. Once your filters are up, the plugin will go through your entire website removing profanity.
You can also replace certain parts of your content with new content. For example, you can change your telephone number all over your website without editing individual pages separately.
Download Word Filter Plug Plugin
Defensio Anti-spam Plugin
A spam blocker and a profanity filter, Defensio Anti-spam plugin will stop comment spam and rogue users on your website.
The following are some the features the plugin is known for:
Malicious content detection
Script detection
URL categorization
Profanity filtering
Et cetera
Even though Defensio Anti-spam “…learns and adapts to your behavior and that of your users over time…”, it doesn’t play well with other spam-blocking plugins such as Akismet. This means you will need to deactivate Akismet and similar plugins to try Defensio Anti-spam.
Download Defensio Anti-spam Plugin
Word Replacer Plugin
Just like the Word Filter Plus plugin, the Word Replacers profane word with your words.
The only demerit is the fact that the plugin does not come with a blacklist, so you have to spend a lot of time setting up word replacements. But once the replacements are in place, the plugin works automatically.
You can filter certain areas of your website while completely ignoring others with the plugin.
Download Word Replacer Plugin
Now that we have profanity well taken care of, how about we stop spammers dead in their tracks.
Top 5 WordPress Spam Blocking Plugins
Akismet Anti-spam Plugin
Spammers are a thorn in the flesh to every WordPress user. We all hate spammers for obvious reasons.
I’ve had my run with spammers, and every time I came out the other end irked until Akismet found me right in my WP dashboard.
Akismet is a very popular plugin what with millions of downloads at WordPress.org plugin repository. The plugin is free to use for small WordPress websites but there is a five-dollar fee per month for big websites.
Other Akismet features include:
· A complex spam filtering engine
· Keep track of comments, pingbacks and trackbacks
· Push spam into a spam folder
· Regular updates
· Easy configuration using API key
Download Akismet Anti-spam Plugin
Spam Free WordPress Plugin
This plugin is a lethal weapon against spam. The Spam Free WordPress plugin will guarantee a clean website that’s free of spammers.
According to the developers, spam Free plugin has the ability to stop all manner of spam without false positives.
Other than that, the plugin does not rely on CAPTCHA, can blacklist IP addresses and has low database load during heavy traffic.
You can choose to dispose spam automatically, which saves you a lot of time.
Download SPAM Free WordPress Plugin
Spam Stopper WordPress Plugin
This plugin lives up to its title by using CAPTCHA technology to validate and capture comment spam. If it detects spam, it stops it immediately because, well, it’s SPAM stopper.
The plugin is easy to configure and use, and it stops spambots (automated spam) that assault blogs.
You will not see the plugin provided you’re logged in. The plugin runs automatically and verifies the commenters’ details before posting their comments.
This is a great anti-spam plugin, but it hasn’t been updated recently (just an FYI).
Download SPAM Stopper WordPress Plugin
WP-reCAPTCHA WordPress Plugin
Popular websites such as Google and Facebook love reCAPTCHA because it is an effective guard against unwanted users and automated spam.
The WP-reCAPTCHA plugin places the power of reCAPTCHA technology in your hands. With WP-reCAPTCHA, you have a unique anti-spam plugin that uses a stricter verification process.
This spam blocking plugin will stop all spambots by distorting wordings to create new images.
Download WP-reCAPTCHA WordPress Plugin
Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (G.A.S.P.)
If only this plugin had as many downloads as Akismet, it would oust the latter as the leading anti-spam plugin out there.
With an impressive rating of 4.9/5.00, Growmap is an effective tool against spambots.
It is a great anti-spam plugin to fight against spambots, but its severely disadvantaged as far as combating pingbacks and human spammers goes. But that’s probably because Growmap do not concern themselves with human spammers but spambots.
Growmap uses a checkbox where users tick to verify they aren’t spambots. This does not stop human spammers though.
Download Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin
Conclusion
Here we are, ten plugins to keep your WordPress site free of profanity and spam. Pick one that works for you, and if you know of other profanity filter or spam plugins, please share with us in the comment section below.
