Video: How to Get Rid of WordPress Blog Comment Spam (Once and For All!)

How to Get Rid of Thousands of Spam Comments at Once (Even if already approved)

After having my sites attacked by spam bots, I had a problem. Google thought my sites were malicious and had blacklisted me. I got together with my web host/tech guru, who helped me by essentially gutting the sites and allowing me to start over from the bottom up, but since I didn’t want to lose my content, there was an additional concern.

It seemed that, at least on some of the sites, I had thousands of already-approved spam comments, and they were causing issues with my hosting service. If you have WordPress, you know that the standard issue CMS doesn’t allow for bulk deletion of already-approved comments. What a huge pain!

Anyway, after much research and many hours of stressing, I figured it out! There’s a simple way to delete all spam comments in WordPress instantly–and almost anyone can do it.

Here’s what I found out.

How to Delete All Spam Comments in WordPress With a Few Simple Clicks

Download and activate the Portable MyPHPAdmin plugin.
Navigate to the plugin’s interface in your WordPress dashboard. (It’ll be on the left, below the “settings” button).
Using the drop-down menu in the interface, select your database.
Select “comments” in the left-side menu, then select “empty.”

That’s it! Once you’ve completed those steps (shouldn’t take more than a few minutes total), you can check your comment list and you’ll see that they’re all deleted.

Bonus: My List of Preferred Plugins (The Ones I Use on My Own Sites)

Google Analytics — a wonderful suite of site analysis tools that can help you to literally give your audience exactly what they want, as well as allowing you to see what’s working on your site (and what’s not) and tweak it accordingly.
Share Buttons — every blog needs a good social share plugin. It should include, at minimum, sharing to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Digg and Reddit. I also suggest reblogging options, such as Tumblr and Blogger, as well as email and print options.
An RSS Feed — most blogs have this built in, but if you want to customize and optimize your feed, try Google’s free Feedburner service.
A Subscription eMail Service — a number of free and paid options are out there – including Google’s Feedburner, Constant Contact, Aweber and my favorite, MailChimp.
An Email Collection Box in Your Sidebar — Your mailing list is so important, and your blog absolutely needs an email collection area in your sidebar, preferably in the upper left or right corner, but for mobile, up top is also useful. This can also be a menu item.
A Popular Posts Plugin — This can be shockingly helpful for getting people to stick around. I have one on my site that offers different lists on different pages – some show the “all time popular” posts, while others show the currently popular posts. There are all kinds of ways to configure it
A Related Posts Plugin — I use, love and recommend Zemanta for related posts, because I can add it to my browser and it instantly becomes available on almost every blogging platform. This allows me to find and select related posts from my own site as well as those around the web.
- When I link out to my own posts, I obviously get more site traffic and lower bounce rates.
- And when I link out to others’ posts, I get more attention and they’re more likely to return the favor, either by linking back or by sharing my posts with their readers via social media. It’s a win-win.

Argo Links – Allows me to quickly link out to any story I like. Later I use the Link Roundups plugin to create link love posts – great for building on your audience and traffic.
Autochimp – The plugin for my email subscription service, MailChimp. Allows people to sign up for the lists more easily and allows me to customize what I send to whom. Also makes for easier setup with autoresponders.
Broken Link Checker – Sends me an email whenever it finds broken links on my site. This is very helpful for staying current and in Google’s good graces. Nobody likes a broken link.
Click-to-Tweet – A newer plugin for me and one that requires a bit of dedication to use regularly. But on the posts that I’ve managed to utilize this plugin, I have found a significant increase in traffic. I plan to go back and update many more.
CSV Importer – Allows me to import zip files of content. It’s a little buggy but it is the best I’ve found for free so far.
Delete Duplicate Date – Just to make sure my site stays search-engine friendly, this little tool gives me the option to get rid of duplicate content. This may not be a problem for you if you’re a new blogger – but after a decade, there are times this comes in handy for me.
Edit Flow – I use this as a backup to my manual editorial calendar. It offers me a quick-look at thr content that is already scheduled and an easy ways to see any holes in my plan. It can also connect to Google Calendar, which is handy-dandy.
Editorial Assistant by Zemanta – In addition to being my favorite related posts plugin, the editiorial assistant offers up royalty-free images you can use (I don’t, and I’ll explain why in Chapter 8), tag suggestions and link-out ideas for your text.
Instapage – Allows me to quickly create landing pages that convert. Has a handy free version that is pretty useful.
Multi-Author Adsense – I have this installed on my primary site because I have a few different people blogging there and each has her own Adsense account.
No Spam at All – Prevents spam comments and helps to quickly manage large amounts of spam already on the site – highly suggested.
Paid Memberships Pro with Mailchimp Addon – A multifaceted plugin that allows a number of customization options, such as the ability to restrict content based on a levels system. The Mailchimp Add-on adds in the ability to sync your WordPress and members quickly and consistently.
PopupAlly – Allows you to create a custom pop-up for whatever you like. I use mine to collect subscribers. You could use it for a number of things. Personally, I avoided using one of these for years because the experts said it would annoy people too much. I find that with the proper settings, the benefits FAR outweigh the potential detriments. I’ve had zero complaints.
Pre-Publish Post Checklist – This is good for new bloggers. I have it on my site because I’ve got a couple of newbies around. It simply reminds you of the steps you need to take to publish a proper post – and you can customize it to your site’s needs.
Recent Tweets WIdget – Exactly what it sounds like – keeps a running RSS feed of my tweets on my site. Handy for a number of reasons.
Recipe Card – This is on one of my sites because I occasionally publish recipes. It’s handy and niche-specific.
Responsive Lightbox – Allows users to view larger versions of the images I use in posts. And it’s optimized for mobile.
S2 Member Framework – A free and very powerful membership program that allows you to protect and allow content based on member roles, among other things. I use it to increase subscribers by putting my freebies in a members-only area. It works like a charm.
Shortcodes Ultimate – Adds a lot of shortcode functionality to the site – very handy for an advanced blogger.
Simple Share Buttons Adder – Exactly what it sounds like – lets you easily add share buttons anywhere you want.
Slideshow – Makes for some easy-to-implement slideshows on your site. You can even add video.
Top 10 – My prefered popular posts plugin.
W3 Total Cache – The highest-rated and most complete WP performance-enhancer I’ve found. It dramatically improves the speed and user experience of your site. It will also allow you to add browser, page, object and database caching as well as minify and content delivery network (CDN) to WordPress.
WordPress Importer – Allows you to import entire WP sites to a new site.
WP Bouncer – Only allows you to be logged into one device at a time. This is good for helping to combat hackers.
Yoast SEO – My personal choive for an all-in-one SEO solution for WP. Includes on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.