Comments
Fewer spam comments and more control: close old posts, set minimum and maximum lengths, a spam trap, no links.
- Close comments on posts older than 30 days New comments are only accepted on posts published in the last 30 days. Older posts keep their comments, but the form closes. Most spam goes to old posts.
- Minimum comment length Comments shorter than 20 characters are refused with a friendly message. Stops “Nice post!” spam and empty replies.
- Maximum comment length Comments longer than 5,000 characters are refused. Spam bots often paste whole articles; real readers rarely write that much.
- Remove the website field from comments The comment form stops asking for a website address, which removes the reason many spammers comment. Links already on old comments stay.
- No clickable links in comment text Addresses typed in a comment show as plain text instead of links, so posting a link in your comments gains a spammer nothing.
- Spam trap in the comment form Adds a hidden field that people never see but bots fill in. Comments that fill it in are refused. No captcha, nothing sent to other companies.
- Don’t remember commenters in cookies WordPress stops saving the commenter’s name, email and website in cookies, and the “Save my name…” checkbox goes away. One less cookie to explain.
- Newest comments first Shows the most recent comments at the top instead of the bottom.
- Only logged-in users can comment Visitors must log in before they can comment. Useful for membership sites and shops where only customers should leave comments.
- No comments on media pages Closes comments on attachment pages, which nobody means to comment on and bots love.
- No emails about comments waiting for approval WordPress stops emailing the site owner every time a comment is held for moderation. You still see them under Comments.
- Turn off pingbacks and trackbacks Closes pingbacks and trackbacks on every post, old and new. They’re almost all spam today.
- Turn off comment feeds Comment feeds (/comments/feed/ and each post’s /feed/) redirect to the post or home page, and their links leave the page head. Your posts feed keeps working.
Move your snippets over this afternoon.
Importing changes nothing until you switch over, and your old shortcodes keep working.