Comment sections, forums, and other forms on your WordPress site are not only helpful for engagement, but they’re also often necessary. Unfortunately, they’re also usually breeding grounds for spam.
There are many WordPress plugins that can help moderate and eliminate spam and bot-related activity. However, if you’re looking for one that doesn’t require your visitors to jump through hoops to verify that they’re human, WP Armour Anti Spam has you covered. This plugin is an all-in-one solution for filtering bots and spammers from your site’s contact forms and comments.
In this post, we’ll briefly discuss the importance of filtering spam on WordPress sites, and some of the problems with many of today’s methods. Then we’ll introduce you to the WP Armour Anti Spam plugin and explain the key benefits of using it. Let’s get started!
The Importance (And Problem) With WordPress Spam Filters and Bot Blockers
Part of maintaining a professional and secure WordPress site is keeping out unwanted bots and bad actors. Not only is spam irritating, but it can also make your site look untrustworthy.
If your comment sections are littered with suspicious and irrelevant comments, it could turn away your visitors. It can also negatively impact your Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Manually sorting and removing these comments yourself is time-consuming. This is why many WordPress site owners look to filter out spam and bots by asking users to fill out a Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) box or puzzle to prove they’re human and not a bot:
While better than nothing, this tactic isn’t exactly user-friendly. It’s annoying, and sometimes may even be enough to make them abandon your site altogether.
Introducing WP Armour Honeypot Anti Spam Plugin
WP Armour is a WordPress anti-spam plugin that eliminates the need for pesky CAPTCHA boxes or other layers of verification that can irritate website visitors:
Rather than making humans prove themselves by passing a series of tests, the WP Armour Anti Spam plugin focuses on filtering the actual bots. It does this by using a reverse honeypot anti-spam technique.
It’s essentially a workaround that takes advantage of spam bot’s inability to handle JavaScript. In a nutshell, the WP Armour plugin uses JavaScript to add an extra field to the forms on your WordPress site. That way, if the field doesn’t exist (because they were invisible to the spambots), the plugin blocks the submission.
4 Key Benefits of the WP Armour Anti Spam Plugin
The first and most obvious advantage of this powerful plugin is that it makes bot spamming impossible. However, that alone isn’t the only reason to consider using it on your WordPress site. Let’s take a closer look at some of the best features and benefits of this plugin.
1. Saves Time and Improves the User Experience (UX)
One of the biggest advantages of using WP Armour is the amount of time it saves you from having to manually sort and filter spam yourself. By handling it for you, it frees you up to focus on other critical business tasks.
This applies to your users, as well. The anti-spam plugin benefits your WordPress site visitors by eliminating the need to complete CAPTCHA boxes and verification quizzes β ultimately improving the UX.
2. Quick and Easy Setup
Another benefit is that it is incredibly easy to set up. After you install and activate the plugin, it immediately starts working:
You won’t have to deal with annoying instructions or confusing configurations. This is true for WordPress’ default comment and form systems, as well as ones you may use on your site from other plugins.
3. Seamless Integrations With WordPress Form Plugins
As a WordPress user, you probably use a few plugins to add contact and other types of forms. With WP Armour, these forms will be protected as well.
In addition to WP Comments and WP Registration, WP Armour Anti Spam works with:
- BBPress Forum
- Contact Form 7
- Ninja Forms
- Gravity Forms
- WPForms
- Formidable Forms
- Caldera Forms
- Toolset Forms
- And more
Again, there won’t be any special configuration or setup needed to make it work with these plugins. Once activated, it integrates seamlessly.
4. Extended Version Lets You Record and Block Spammers IP
As we mentioned, you can download the WP Armour Honeypot Anti Spam plugin for free from the WordPress Plugin Directory. However, WP Armour Extended is also available and comes with advanced settings and premium features:
Most notably, this upgrade lets you can record and block spammer IPs, without wasting bandwidth or resources. It helps you feel confident knowing you’re blocking actual spammers and not users.
Also, many spam plugins require a monthly subscription. However, a WP Armour license grants lifetime access. There are multiple plans available:
With each plan, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee as well as premium support. You can also upgrade any time!
Conclusion
Clearing out spam on your WordPress site can be quite a hassle. Although you could use CAPTCHA and other verification processes to help keep out bots, these usually tend to come at the sake of user convenience.
The WP Armour Anti Spam plugin is a powerful solution for filtering and blocking spam bots from your WordPress forms. In addition to the reverse honeypot technique it uses, four key benefits include:
- It saves you time from having to sort spam comments and prevents your visitors from dealing with annoying CAPTCHAs.
- There’s no setup required.
- It integrates with a plethora of WordPress form plugins.
- There’s a WP Armour Extended version that lets you record and block a scammer’s IP from your site.
Do you have any questions about using WP Armour Anti Spam? Let us know in the comments section below!
5 Responses
Thanks for your question! According to the WP Armour support forum, the plugin does not work particularly well with Varnish.
WP Armor Anti Spam Plugin This plugin is a very important plugin. You have discussed this plugin in a very nice way in this content. So thank you so much.
Thanks, Maria! Glad you liked the post.
What about sites that are behind reverse proxies such as Varnish and Cloudflare? Will this plugin NOT block the whole proxy ?
Thanks for your question! According to the WP Armour support forum, the plugin does not work particularly well with Varnish. There is no feedback regarding any problems using it with Cloudflare, however.