If you’ve had a website for more than a month, chances are you’ve gotten some comments on posts that… well, they’re very obvious spam. Things like “Great post! Check out our products at *insert site name*” or sometimes just a long list of different products. Spam is everywhere nowadays and, don’t worry, it’s not just you that’s affected. It’s everyone.
Why do I get spam?
Once your website is cataloged on search engines, people are able to find it easily. Unfortunately, there are also tools that search for new websites, especially ones that aren’t popular yet, so as to spam them. They then spam the comments with various posts like the ones above to increase their own search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.
It’s nothing you’ve done wrong and no, your website hasn’t been hacked just because you have some spam. It’s just something that people do and we have to deal with.
Speaking of, how DO I deal with spam?
Well, the simplest and easiest way is to simply delete the comments. You can even make it so you have to approve comments before they show in the comment sections. This is, however, not the most effective way, especially if you’ve got a large site.
Another option, and probably one of the most effective, is to get an add-on or plugin. There are both free and paid ones on the market, each offering different services, so do your research before purchasing.
Finally, if you don’t want to have to deal with spam, you can either require users to sign up to your website before commenting, or disable comments entirely.