Block Comment Spam Bots vs Ajaxify Comments – Ajax and Lazy Loading Comments

Professional spammers use programs to automate their spamming. The ‘Block Comment Spam Bots’ (BCSB) plugin efficiently blocks their process. No more comment spam! As no legitimate user will use the professional spammer’s automated process which relies on cURL and WGET commands, real users will never notice the BCSB plugin at work. There are no CAPTCHAS for your visitors to interact with. No silly questions. Just the comment form as designed in any theme. On the admin side, there are no blacklists, special keys (like Askimet), overloaded spam queues, or overworked databases that store spam comments until you manually delete them. Install the plugin and that’s it. Invisible, to you and your visitors. The only change you will notice is in your admin area. The list of comments now has a green check next to them. That way you know that comment was made on your website by a real person and was not bypassed by hacking spammers connecting directly to your server. All that remains is comments made by real people, and while real people can spam, it takes them time and effort. The amount of spam from real people is a lot more manageable than the tsunami from automated spammers, saving you time to concentrate on the important things in life, like your readers, and making connections. We’ve tested it on multiple websites and it wipes out automated spam completely. If it doesn’t on your site, please let us know. ** Geeky Stuff ** …in case you are interested in how it works… tl;dr – This provides a total and easy solution to comment spam from spam bots. Comments are processed by the WordPress wp-post-comments.php file. Automated spammers (‘spam bots’) can provide (‘post’) data directly to that page, bypassing any comment processing, by using CURL/WGET commands. Bypassing the comment form by posting directly (via CURL or WGET commands), is quite easy. Just send the post ID number, and the bot’s fake name and email, and the spammy content. Boom! Comment spam is on your site! The result is comment spam – and that is not always caught by other comment spam checkers. Even if it is caught by programs such as Akismet, processing that spam takes some server resources, including writing to the database. This plugin uses several techniques to ‘sense’ a spambot. There are hidden fields that are changed after a delay. There is a delay in displaying the submit button. And it blocks direct access to the WordPress post/processing functions. The techniques, also used in our standalone “FormSpemmerTrap” (FST) program, and our other anti-spam plugins (like FormSpammerTrap for Comments), are very effective. They use a bit of JavaScript to block spambots – since automated processes via CURL/WGET/etc cannot process JS code. It’s simple: you install this plugin, activate it, and bot comments will stop. Immediately. And it doesn’t add any visual impediments to your comments. No reCaptcha things (which many see as a pain). No silly questions (‘what is 2+8’) on the form. Your comment form does not change. Regular users will not notice a difference. But you will. No more spam comments for you! This is the best solution to block comment spam. We’ve tested it on a site that had 20-40 spam comments a day. With this plugin enabled, the spam comment stopped. Immediately. And there have been none since installing this plugin. ** Not one. Zero.** The Admin, Comments list page is modified to show a column with a green checkmark icon if the comment was entered by a real person and not a bot. This is an assurance that the comment was not entered via an automated CURL/WGET to the wp-comments-post.php file. A comment that is on the list that does not show the checkmark was done by a bot. But you won’t see those blocked comments with this plugin enabled. They never get into your database. You can hover over the checkmark icon to see the GUID value indicating a person entered the comment. The plugins ‘Settings’ screen has no settings. You don’t even need to look at the Settings screen. If you do, you’ll see information about the plugin. And there is a CURL command you can use to test the effectiveness of blocking (or not blocking) direct access to the wp-comments-post.php file. The plugin also adds the hidden GUID field to the comment form after a delay to help block bots that are using the comment form to submit. If the hidden field is not submitted then a bot tried to bypass the comment form. And a short delay happens before the comment submit button is displayed – another bot protection.

Skip page reloads and separate error screens when posting comments. Ajaxify Comments hooks into your native WordPress comment system and allows comment posting without a page reload. Lazy loading comments is also supported, which can help speed up your page load time. TLDR Getting Started | Sponsor Us | Ajaxify Home Ajaxify Comments hooks into your theme and improves the usability of the comment form by validating and adding comments without the need of page reloads. Users can remain on the page and interact with new comments as they’re posted. This plugin also supports lazy loading of comments, which can help speed up your page load time. Introduction When submitting the comment form, WordPress by default reloads the entire page. This can be a disorienting experience for the user. In the case of errors in the comment (invalid email, duplicate comment, empty comment), these often require a separate error screen and the user has to use the back button to edit their comment. This can be a frustrating experience for the user. Adding to that, comments can be resource intensive, and can slow down your page load time. With Ajaxify Comments, comments are posted without a page reload. If there are errors, the error message is shown immediately, so the user can correct their comment. Ajaxify Comments also comes with lazy loading of the comments section. For a page with a lot of comments, this can speed things up considerably. You can load comments when the DOM is ready or when the comment section is scrolled into view. Moreover this plugin includes an option to automatically refresh the comments on the current page while the user stays on your page without requiring a page reload. This can be helpful in busy comment sections where reply response time is important. Quick Resource Links Here are some helpful links to help you get started with Ajaxify Comments (docs): Getting Started Guide Lazy Loading Comments Menu Helper and Selectors Translating Using WPML Requirements and Compatibility Please use the native WordPress comment system with Ajaxify Comments. The plugin has integrations with: Confetti – Show confetti when a comment is posted. Comment Edit Core – Allow users to edit their comments. Comment Edit Pro – Add numerous utilities and automations to your comment section. The following themes are supported out of the box: Astra Blocksy Divi Genesis Ollie GeneratePress Neve Twenty Ten – Twenty Twenty Three Ajaxify Comments should be compatible with most block themes. If Menu Helper can’t find the selectors, please leave a support request. Technical Note Since the plugin hooks into the theme on client-side to intercept the comment form submit process, and to add new comments without reloading the page, the plugin needs to access the DOM nodes using jQuery selectors. The plugin comes with default values for these selectors that were successfully tested with WordPress’ default themes “Twenty Ten”, “Twenty Eleven”, “Twenty Twelve”, “Twenty Thirteen”, “Twenty Fourteen”, “Twenty Fifteen”, “Twenty Sixteen”. If required, the selectors can be customized to match your theme in the plugin’s settings. Menu Helper is available to help you find the theme’s selectors. Features Ajaxify Comments is community supported. If you would like to add or change anything about the plugin, please consider assisting with the development on GitHub. Post comments without a page reload. Show error messages without a page reload. Lazy load comments, compatible with most themes, including block theme and inline loading. Automatically refresh comments. Comment form validation. Support for pages with multiple comment forms. Support for threaded and moderated comments. Compatible with most spam plugins. Menu Helper to help you find the right selectors for your theme. Appearance preview to see how the plugin will look on your site. Simulate Ajaxify Comments enabled or disabled for testing and to compare the difference. Translate and customize the default WordPress comment messages. Questions/Help? Please use the support forum to ask questions or to report issues. If you don’t want to create an account to leave a support request, please use my support form. Most questions can be resolved by checking out our docs site. https://docs.dlxplugins.com/v/ajaxify-comments – the Search is AI, so it should be able to find what you’re looking for. Credits This plugin was initially developed by Jan Jonas starting in 2012. Company weweave maintained the plugin from 2014-2022. The plugin is currently supported by Ronald Huereca of DLX Plugins.