WordPress Registration spam can be a headache for your WordPress site. Ever since WordPress has grown as a community and website, many people see it as an ideal platform to spam. They may have different kinds of intentions, like using your website’s popularity or just trying to get access to some information. Either way, any spam goes on to deteriorate the quality of content you put on your website.
The major problem of spam arises when your registration is public on the WordPress website. This is because spammers get easy access to register themselves onto some forum and use it for spamming. So, there are a few ways you can avoid this problem by using some built-in features of WordPress or by installing a free plugin that will help you do so.
How to prevent registration spam on WordPress
There are different strategies available to deal with this issue. You can choose any one of these based on your site’s needs and how severe the problem of spamming is on it. Sometimes a single strategy may not be effective. So, you can also opt for a combination of multiple methods to tackle the situation properly.
You can altogether disable registration on your WordPress website
The easiest step to stop or at least lower spam on your WordPress Registration Spam is by disabling public registration if your site does not necessarily need it. When the registration is public, it attracts many spammers who otherwise would not have access if your registration were private. For example, suppose you only need a small number of people on your WordPress website. The better option will be to manually make those accounts instead of keeping the registration public for everyone.
To disable this feature, you can go to “Settings” and then to “General.” After this, uncheck the box captioned “Anyone can register,” and registration on your WordPress website will be disabled completely.
Use a plugin that is designed to stop WordPress Registration Spam.
If disabling the registration is not a feasible option for you, you can also go for a plugin specifically dedicated to stopping registration spam on your WordPress website. Some plugins are all-purpose, while others could be specific to a particular section of your site, like the form submissions, comments section, etc. For example, with plugins like Stop Spammers, you can stop spam in your registration and emails, comments and prevent spambots. Other popular plugins that you can use to stop registration spam could be WPBruiser, Clean Talk, and WordPress Zero Spam that will act as effectively. Although not all these plugins are specific to preventing registration spam, their general anti-spam features will help you reduce or stop spam on your registration section of the WordPress website.
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Make Admin approval mandatory for registering new users
Spam is not a problem that is limited to the registration phase only. Some people may also start spamming once they are done registering. This is why you might need an additional layer of protection to secure your WordPress website. One way to do it is by making admin approval compulsory for all the new users. This essentially means you can control permissions given to new users manually. However, when you run a WordPress website, you are bound to have hundreds of new users every day. So, handling everything manually can be overwhelming and physically impossible. Luckily, you can easily do away with all this work with the use of a simple plugin. A plugin like the WP Approve User plugin will take care of all these permissions, so you don’t have to worry about it. This strategy can be effectively combined with a CAPTCHA to give the best results. While CAPTCHA will act as a filter to prevent all the low-level automated spam, admin approval or a plugin for the same purpose can be vigilant for other spam.
Restrict access to IP addresses with malicious content
Sometimes you may observe a pattern that your spam source is from a common IP address. In this case, the simplest strategy will be to block these sites. This simple trick will save you lots of time and effort and bring down the spam you receive by a significant amount. You can either use the feature available on your WordPress Registration Spam website’s dashboard or even from the cPanel hosts, which usually provide a blocking tool to restrict access to malicious IP addresses.
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Conclusion of WordPress Registration Spam
The problem of spam on your WordPress Registration Spam website can be an annoying issue. Luckily there are several strategies you can use to prevent such exploitation by spammers. While public registration might be necessary for your website’s functioning, it can substantially increase the spam on your website. So, use the strategies listed above or even a combination of more than one strategy to reduce or eliminate the issue of spam from your websites. Either manual techniques or plugins use, find which method suits your needs the best and protect your WordPress website from annoying spammers and make a safe community for your users.
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