How to Stop WordPress Trackback and Pingback Spam
Trackbacks can be a great way for WordPress publishers to share insights and continue meaningful conversations with readers through their writing.
A trackback can be thought of as an external WordPress comment. If another site using different blogging software links to one of your posts, they can manually send a notification (a trackback) to let you know.
Pingbacks are the same, except they are exclusive to WordPress. The only difference is that sending one to another site is automatic, but they also have to be using WordPress. Both sites need to have pingbacks enabled either on their entire site or on the post that’s referenced.
If the trackback or pingback is approved, a link and an excerpt of the article along with its title will be displayed in the comments section of your post.
Unfortunately, it’s also a feature that attracts a ton of spammers. Fortunately, there are easy ways to prevent and help stop WordPress trackback spam altogether. They’re also just as compatible with Multisite as they are for regular installs.
Here are a few quick tips and a list of highly effective, up-to-date, and free plugins to significantly cut down the amount of spam you receive.
You might find that most of the trackbacks you receive are spam. If you’d rather just turn off trackbacks all together, you can do this through the admin dashboard without any coding or plugins.
Head over to Settings > Discussion and under the first heading, Default article settings, de-select the checkbox for
Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page and that’s it – you won’t get anym0re trackbacks. If you don’t want to miss an opportunity for a great conversation you can easily use one of these plugins.
Hide Trackbacks
This plugin is an alternative to turning off the trackback option in the admin dashboard. If you would still like to receive notifications, but don’t want them posted in the comments section in case it’s spam, this plugin is worth exploring.
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A quick and easy install gets this plugin working right out of the box without any configuration. When you receive notifications, they still appear in the comments section in your admin dashboard.
It’s as simple as that. Your visitors won’t see any spam and you’ll receive a notification when you’re mentioned by popular sites.
Antispam Bee
Antispam Bee is a popular choice for WordPress users with over 200,000 active installs. It not only has the option to validate trackbacks, it also checks comments for spam, too.
It’s as simple to install as most other plugins and the comprehensive settings can be found under Settings > Antispam Bee.
The default settings will usually be enough for most sites. You can even choose to enable Antispam Bee to check with their own database of known offenders and compare them to the comments and trackbacks you receive.
You can even block comments and trackbacks by country which can be useful if your site is meant for a local community, for example.
It has quite a few other settings making it a powerful plugin for the non-existent price tag.
Conclusion
With these plugins and tips, trackback spam won’t bother you anymore.
If you’d like even more tips for protecting your WordPress site, try our articles Put the Smackdown on Spam: 15 Top-Rated WordPress Antispam Plugins and Stop WordPress Comment Spam With These Pro Tips.
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Jenni McKinnon Jenni has spent over 15 years developing websites and almost as long for WordPress as a copywriter, copy editor, web developer, and course instructor. A self-described WordPress nerd, she enjoys watching The Simpsons and names her test sites after references from the show.