Remember to check and empty your WordPress spam

The spam filters on my blogs are very efficient. Very few spams are ever published, though more than I like slip through for my personal attention in the Moderation queue. There are often one or two per day that I need to moderate.

I use the Spam Karma and Bad Behavior plugins to keep the rotten spammers at bay.

177 spams – 9 pages worth!

What does happen though is that the spams gradually accumulate in the spam ‘folder’. Every week or two, when the numbers creep into the hundreds I look through them and ditch the lot.

I very very rarely find a legitimate comment caught up in the junk.

It’s quite a nice feeling really, tossing out the digital trash!

Empty Spam!

Recent versions of WordPress (my blog is running 2.9.2 at time of writing) make it easier to dump the spam.

Check and dump spam

1. Log in to your blog’s Dashboard and click on the Comments section. Or just go directly to http://[your blog address]/wp-admin/edit-comments.php.
2. Click on a link at the top of the list of Comments:
   • All
   • Pending
   • Approved
   • Spam
   • Trash

   I usually like to clean up Pending items before heading to the list of Spam.

3. Check the list of Spam comments for any that are actually not spam. Remove a comment from spam by checking the box beside it, Select Not Spam from the Bulk Actions drop-down menu, and click the Apply button.
4. When you’re ready to delete all the spam comments click the Empty Spam button above the list of comments. Make sure you really do want to delete all comments marked as spam before clicking the Empty Spam button. There is no warning message. All the spam comments are permanently deleted.

Remember to also check comments listed under Trash, and decide what to do with them.

Keep your Comments listings clean with regular checks. It helps to keep the database trim, and makes it easier for you to enable a good community on your blog.