WordPress Zero Spam Plugin Packages David Walsh’s Anti-Spam Method

WordPress Zero Spam is the latest to join the ranks of anti-spam plugins fighting on the front lines of WordPress sites. The new plugin is based on a simple method created by Mozilla developer David Walsh, whose popular tech blog gets regularly hammered by 8,000+ spam comments per day.

In a recent tutorial titled How I Stopped WordPress Comment Spam, Walsh explains his method which essentially relies on inserting a key client-side via JavaScript on form submission. He then adds a server-side key check with PHP. If the check fails, the comment is rejected.

After two weeks of employing this method, Walsh claims to have brought his spam comments down to zero. “I went from over 8,000 per day to none. Better than Akismet, better than any plugin.” Inspired by Walsh’s success, web developer Ben Marshall packaged the method into a WordPress plugin with an enticing tagline: “Just install, activate and say goodbye to spam.”

WordPress Zero Spam is different from Akismet, the most often recommended spam blocking solution, in that it’s not a service dedicated to filtering spam. It simply checks for bots and discards spam comments at the door before they reach your site. The benefit here is that you are likely to have fewer spam comments and false positives to hunt through. Since it’s an open source plugin and not a service, WordPress Zero Spam is free for both personal and commercial use.

The downside of this new plugin is that anyone without support for JavaScript will have their comments rejected. However, the percentage of actual commenters with JS turned off is likely to be infinitesimal compared to the number of bots trying to comment on your site. If you don’t mind the JavaScript requirement and want a simple solution with no options to configure, then WordPress Zero Spam is a plugin that may work well for you.