How to Quickly Batch Delete Spam Comments in WordPress

Let’s face it – spam comments are more than just annoying. They can damage your site’s reputation, discourage real discussions, and even hurt your SEO if left unchecked.

At WPBeginner, we get thousands of comments every day, so you can imagine how much spam we’ve dealt with over the years. We have our own go-to prevention tricks, but sometimes we still need to do bulk cleanups to keep our comment section healthy.

In this guide, we’ll show you the fastest ways to batch-delete spam comments in WordPress, based on our experience managing high-traffic websites. We’ll also share our proven strategies for preventing spam comments in the future.

Why You Need to Deal With Comment Spam in WordPress

Dealing with comment spam is super important for your WordPress website. From our experience, this type of spam usually comes from malicious actors who try to boost their websites’ search rankings and trick visitors by commenting on your content.

Thousands of spam comments are generated by computer programs called spambots, while others come from real people. They are usually off-topic, badly written, and include links to other websites.

If you don’t moderate the comment section and let the spam comments go live, then they can harm your site’s reputation. People might think your site is low-quality and full of spam.

Plus, if any of the links in these comments lead to harmful stuff like viruses, search engines might label your site as unsafe. So, it’s crucial to actively handle and stop comment spam to keep your WordPress site trustworthy.

You can remove spam by following our list of vital tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

However, even if you do everything right, it’s still difficult to stop all spam. This means you will still need to manually delete unwanted messages in the WordPress dashboard.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to batch-delete spam comments in WordPress. You can use these quick links to skip to a specific method:

Method 1: Batch-Delete Spam in the WordPress Comments Page (No Plugin)

The first method to bulk-delete spam comments on WordPress is by going to the Comments page in the admin area.

Here, you can delete multiple comments at once using the bulk action feature.

Simply check the box next to each unwanted message, and then select ‘Move to Trash’ from the ‘Bulk Actions’ dropdown.

Then, just click on ‘Apply’ to remove these comments.

This is a good option if you just need to remove a few spam comments at once and want to take a look at the comments further. However, if you get a lot of unwanted messages, then this method can be too time-consuming.

Method 2: Bulk-Delete Spam Comments in WordPress With a Plugin (Faster)

Another easy way to bulk-delete all WordPress comments that are spam is by using the WP Bulk Delete plugin.

The free version of this plugin lets you bulk-delete WordPress comments based on status, so you can easily remove all messages that are flagged as Pending, Spam, or Trash.

Just be aware that this plugin deletes comments permanently. If you check the wrong box and remove a comment by accident, then that content is lost forever. With that in mind, it’s smart to back up your WordPress website using a plugin such as Duplicator Pro before continuing.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Bulk Delete plugin. If you need help, then please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

When you are ready, go to WP Bulk Delete » Delete Comments in your WordPress admin dashboard. You can now check the comment category that you want to delete, such as pending comments, spam comments, trash comments, or approved comments.

For example, you will usually want to delete all comments that are marked as Spam.

If you have just reviewed your Pending queue and approved all genuine comments, then you might want to delete the Pending comments, too.

After checking the box, scroll to the bottom of the page. In the ‘Limit’ field, you can specify the maximum number of comments to remove in one go, which can be useful if you have dozens of comments to delete.

Finally, click on ‘Delete Comments.’ WP Bulk Delete will now permanently delete all of these comments in WordPress in bulk.

Bonus Tip: Manage Your Comment Section With Akismet and Thrive Comments

If you want to keep your WordPress blog‘s comment section safe from spam, then we recommend installing Akismet. This anti-spam plugin can spot spam comments and immediately assign them Spam status.

If these spam comments are not reviewed within 15 days, then Akismet will automatically delete them, so you won’t have to remove them manually again and again.

Besides Akismet, we also recommend installing Thrive Comments. This comment plugin comes with moderation tools to make managing your comments section much easier.

For example, you can assign certain user roles to moderate comments so that you can share the responsibility among your team members. Plus, you can delegate comments to certain users if you think they are more suited to respond to the messages.

Another thing Thrive Comments can do is remove the default website URL field from your comment form. This is a space often used for inserting malicious links, so deleting it can prevent that from happening.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to easily bulk-delete spam comments in WordPress. You may also want to check out our expert picks of the best WordPress comment plugins and our guide on how to get more comments on your WordPress site.

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