Cannot turn off comments posting – spam still getting through

That will be trackback spam.
Activate Akismet if you haven’t and download and install the Bad Behavior plugin. Spam erased.
https://www.bad-behavior.ioerror.us/download/

Some of the spam contains huge lists of links, while most are just 1 link.

I don’t have Akismet, so I guess I will have to install it. Is Akismet and Bad Behavior the best spam protection in your opinion? I was earlier thinking about installing Spam Karma 2, but it seemed a bit overkill looking at the huge size of that plugin.

I still can’t figure out why I am unable to turn off comment posting. Unchecking “allow people to post comments” apparently doesn’t work.

Thanks,
Fred

You can turn off comments and your readers won’t be able to comment.

But that won’t stop trackbacks and pingbacks.

As far as what’s best, you’ll probably want to experiment.

Personally, I suggest running either Spam Karma 2 or Akismet.
And then Bad Behavior. Bad Behavior stops many before they even get started, one of the others takes it from there.

I probably should have had “Allow link notifications from other Weblogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.)” unchecked instead. I always keep “An administrator must approve the comment” checked, but I must delete the spam messages before the Awaiting Moderation list gets too big.

Does trackback and pingback spam go to the same “Awaiting Moderation” page as do comments?

Does trackback and pingback spam go to the same “Awaiting Moderation” page as do comments?

Basically yep. It goes the same place comment spam goes. Where that would be is a bit dependent on if you’re using akismet, sk2 or neither.

I need a WordPress API key to use Akismet. I probably don’t have one since I never created a wordpress blog account and I have always hosted WordPress blogs on my own sites.

According to this article, I will need to create a wordpress blog account, just so I can get an API key, even if I never use it to host a blog.

https://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/19/akismet-a-wordpresscom-blog-and-the-api-key/

Thanks,
Fred

I installed bad behaviour, and it worked great for a few days but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. A ton of new comment spam is now getting through.