By default, WordPress allows certain HTML tags within the comments such as <a> <em> <strong> etc. If you notice a lot of SPAM comments also contain these tags. Most SPAM comments are made by bots and scripts, which are using HTML tags. If you simply disable HTML from your WordPress comments, it can prevent a lot of SPAM. In this tutorial we will show you how you can disable HTML tags in your WordPress comments.
This tutorial will only disable active HTML tags. So someone can still post something like:
<a><em><strong>
And it will show up, but the tags will not be functional. So if someone uses the strong tag, it won’t bold the text. Besides not many SPAM bots have time to do this because this way takes up a lot of time and it is not beneficial for them.
All you have to do is simply open your functions.php and add the following code:
// This will occur when the comment is posted
function plc_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) {
// convert everything in a comment to display literally
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment['comment_content']);
// the one exception is single quotes, which cannot be #039; because WordPress marks it as spam
$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = str_replace( "'", ''', $incoming_comment['comment_content'] );
return( $incoming_comment );
}
// This will occur before a comment is displayed
function plc_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) {
// Put the single quotes back in
$comment_to_display = str_replace( ''', "'", $comment_to_display );
return $comment_to_display;
}
If you don’t want to manually add this code yourself, then the original author also offers a plugin that you can download. Simply install and activate Peter’s Literal Comments plugin.
The reason why this way is better is because it does not require you to change the core files. If you want to edit your core files then you may go to wp-includes/kses.php and edit the codes there. (This is not Recommended, but it is here for the sake of knowledge. (WP Codex for more details)
Gwyneth Llewelyn says
Unfortunately, the Peter’s Literal Comments plugin is not active any longer; it has been updated last in 2015, and may not even work on recent versions any more. You might need to recommend a different plugin instead…
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for letting us know that the plugin is not active a the moment. When we look at updating the article we will look for an alternative
Admin
KM Shariful says
What html codes I can use in comment box of wordpress site as a visitor?
WPBeginner Support says
Hi,
You can use the following HTML tags in comments by default.
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>Admin
San Solanki says
Very well written article, i always follow your blog for all my wordpress problems thnks
Ekesmall says
Is not working here………anyway round??
Sandile Nxumalo says
After all these years, this still works. Thanks
carlo says
Dude, you forgot the closing tag }
WPBeginner Support says
Thanks for pointing out, we have fixed the code snippet.
Admin
anshu says
there are lots of commnts on my every blog post … how to disable HTML hyperlink so that i can prevent my blog post from spam
falvarez says
I think that something is missing. You should add your function plc_comment_display() to the filter stack like this:
add_filter(‘comment_text’, ‘plc_comment_display’);
Regards.
johnroypaul says
Brilliant article thanks! Seems to work perfectly well with the latest versions of wordpress as well (3.3) Made the code a lot cleaner as mentioned and seems to have made life easier when trying to implement the comments form into side areas ect. (Had a nightmare with previous use of the normal code)
wordpress hosting says
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Kamal says
Great, by this way one can ensure that nobody drops links in the comment box. I really hate to see people doing that unnecessarily.
shoaib hussain says
Nice piece of code,but if you happen to use thesis like I am,only needs to check a radio button and the html code vanishes.
Editorial Staff says
Yes you are right, but we are not supporting Thesis on this site because it is not compatible with the GPL License.
Admin
Cruz3N says
Its confused me Bro, but i make some simple plugin that allow you to replace with > ;
<?php
/*
Plugin Name: Filter Comments
Plugin URI: http://cruzenaldo.com/plugin-sederhana-filter-komentar/
Description: Plugin sederhana untuk melakukan filterisasi terhadap komentar dan mencegah user menginput tag – tag HTML
Author: Cruz3N
Author URI: http://www.cruzenaldo.com/
Version: 1.0
*/
function my_function ($text) {
$text = str_replace('’, ‘> ;’, $text);
return $text;
}
add_filter(‘comment_text’, ‘my_function’);
?>
You can modification that better… Hope usefull
Download here
http://www.box.net/shared/rgb4lmt5uy
And this is my ugly blog :p
http://cruzenaldo.com/
Best Regard
Cruz3N
Infographiste says
Thank you for the useful tuto and easy to follow. I’ve found another one explaining how to disable HTML but was to hard and badly explained, anyway thanks again and have a great week end
michelle says
this great and should help to block out loads of spam
thanks
Blogger Pemula says
Thanks for the Great Tips.
Is it affecting commentluv plugin?
Editorial Staff says
Haven’t tried yet, but don’t think it should.
Admin
Ms. Freeman says
This will be of great help from those spam bots that try to leave comments with twenty or so links…LOL:) Thanks
Jad Limcaco says
Thanks! Didn’t know how to do this before.