AOS Digital

AOS Comment Spam Cleanup helps you remove comment spam in bulk using URL pattern matching, and prevents future bot submissions with a honeypot and quality scoring. Whether you have hundreds of shortlink spam comments or want ongoing protection, this plugin has you covered.
It works alongside Akismet and other spam filters, not instead of them.
<h4>✨ What you can do</h4>
🔍 Pattern Scanner 
Type a URL fragment (e.g. <code>shorturl.fm</code>) into the scanner, click Check Count to see exactly how many comments match, then choose your action: mark as spam, move to trash, or delete permanently.
⏱ Scheduled Auto-Cleanup 
Set a WP-Cron job to run hourly, twice daily, daily, or weekly. Configure your patterns and action once — the plugin keeps your comment section clean automatically.
🤖 Honeypot Bot Protection 
An invisible form field is added to your comment form. Real visitors never see or fill it. Bots that automatically fill every form field get rejected with a 403 error — silently, without affecting real users who never see or fill the field.
📊 Comment Quality Scoring 
Every new comment is automatically scored based on: 
– Number of external links (+2 per link) 
– Shortlink in author URL (+4 points) 
– Very short text under 15 characters (+2 points) 
– High symbol/punctuation density (+3 points) 
– Known spam keywords like “casino” or “viagra” (+3 points) 
– Excessive ALL-CAPS usage (+2 points)
If the score exceeds your threshold, the comment is held for review or marked as spam automatically.
🚫 Gravatar Privacy (GDPR-friendly) 
Optionally block all external requests to gravatar.com. When enabled, avatar images are suppressed completely, preventing third-party data transfers without visitor consent — helpful for GDPR / DSGVO compliance.
💬 Disable Comments Globally 
Close comments and trackbacks / pingbacks on all posts, pages, and custom post types in one click. Existing comments are not deleted — only new submissions are blocked. Disabling the toggle restores original comment status immediately without any database changes.
🛡 WordPress Blocklist Integration 
Add URL patterns directly to WordPress’s native disallowed_keys list — new comments containing those patterns are caught before they even reach the scanner.
📋 Spam Domain Analysis 
Automatically scans your existing spam and trash comments to surface the most common offending domains, so you always know what to block next.
<h4>🎯 Who is this for?</h4>
<ul>
<li>Site owners who suddenly find hundreds of shortlink spam comments (you know who you are)</li>
<li>Bloggers who want passive spam protection without a heavy third-party service</li>
<li>Developers managing multiple WordPress sites who need efficient bulk moderation</li>
<li>Anyone frustrated by shortlinks like <code>bit.ly</code>, <code>shorturl.fm</code>, <code>cutt.ly</code> in their comments</li>
</ul>
<h4>❓ Why not just use Akismet?</h4>
Akismet is great for real-time filtering — but it doesn’t help you clean up existing spam, and it doesn’t support pattern-based bulk actions. AOS Comment Spam Cleanup fills that gap. Use both.
<h4>🔒 Privacy</h4>
This plugin does not collect, transmit or store any personal data on external servers. All processing happens on your own server. No external API calls are made during normal operation.
<h4>🌍 Translations</h4>
Ships with English and German (<code>de_DE</code>). Help translate at <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/" rel="nofollow ugc">translate.wordpress.org</a>.
<h4>👨‍💻 Developer</h4>
Made by <a href="https://aos-digital.de/" rel="nofollow ugc">AOS Digital</a> — WordPress development from Germany.

AOS Comment Spam Cleanup

Clean up comment spam by URL pattern, schedule auto-cleanups, block bots with a honeypot, and auto-score comment quality — all in one panel.

The 9 Dollar Plugins

The 9 Dollar Comment Spam Mute is your silent, Zero-Touch spam-fighting sidekick. It catches spam comments before they even think about touching your database. No moderation queue. No spam folder. No admin drama. 
Set it up once. Let it work. Never think about spam again.
Why you’ll like it 
Most anti-spam plugins ship your comment data off to who-knows-where, demand an API key, or just shuffle spam into a folder that slowly turns into a digital landfill. This one does things differently: everything runs on your own server, zero external requests, and spam comments are gone before they ever arrive. 
No spam folder to clean. No pending queue. No cloud. No key. No fuss.
How it kicks spam to the curb 
The plugin hooks into WordPress at the earliest possible moment — right before a comment would be saved. If something looks like spam, it’s silently discarded. You get to choose what happens next: with Silent Mode on, bots see a fake success message and never realize they’ve been blocked (so they won’t change tactics). With Silent Mode off, the comment is rejected with a normal error message. Either way: zero database clutter.
Heads-up (important!) 
Discarded spam comments are gone for good. That’s why there’s a mandatory opt-in step — so you’re fully aware before spam protection goes live. You keep full control over all detection settings, and comments only get discarded once you explicitly arm the plugin.
Why this plugin exists 
Most anti-spam plugins: 
– send your data to external APIs 
– require API keys and accounts 
– store spam in folders nobody cleans 
This plugin does none of that. Everything runs locally on your server. No external calls. No cloud dependency. No unnecessary complexity. 
Spam is not stored. It’s gone.
Features (LITE — free) 
– No external API calls — fully GDPR-compliant by design 
– No API key, no account, zero setup fuss — just install, configure once, arm it, and you’re done 
– No external API calls — all spam detection runs locally on your server 
– GDPR-compliant by design — no data leaves your site; IP addresses stored for spam detection only, auto-deleted after 90 days 
– Universal coverage — protects comments on posts, pages, custom post types, WooCommerce product reviews, and all native WordPress comment types 
– Comments get intercepted and discarded before they ever hit the database — no spam folder to clean, ever 
– Silent Mode — bots get a fake success message and never realize they’ve been blocked (keeps them from adapting) 
– Set once, runs automatically — after you arm it, you’re done 
– Works with all native WordPress comment types — posts, pages, custom post types, attachments, WooCommerce reviews 
– Mandatory opt-in — you’re always in control 
– Arm / Disarm control — activate or pause spam protection instantly without losing settings 
– Rate limiting — automatically blocks IPs that submit comments too frequently 
– Discarded comments log — last 50 entries with date, IP, author and reason, auto-pruned after 90 days 
– Sleek & slim — one PHP file, one CSS file, one JS file. No classes, no autoloader, no framework baggage 
– Honeypot trap — invisible field silently catches automated spam bots 
– Speed check — discards submissions faster than any human could type 
– Time token validation — rejects replayed or forged submission tokens older than one hour 
– Link limit — discards comments containing too many links, a classic spam signal 
– Keyword blacklist — case-insensitive spam keyword list, fully customisable, one word per line 
– Whitelist: Email / IP / User-Agent — never block your trusted commenters 
– Daily report email — optional morning summary of discarded spam, sent straight to your inbox
PRO version extras 
Upgrade to PRO and level up your spam defense: 
– Self-learning IP Blocklist — automatically flags repeat offenders (PRO only) 
– Custom Regex Patterns — build your own advanced spam rules (PRO only) 
– Smart Learning Spam Filter — trains itself on your site’s own comment history (PRO only) 
– Adjustable log size — keep as many or as few entries as you like (PRO only) 
– CSV log export — download your discarded comments log anytime (PRO only) 
– WooCommerce Verified Buyer Whitelist — verified customers get a free pass (PRO only) 
– Statistics Dashboard Widget — see your spam stats at a glance (PRO only) 
– Priority support — fast help when you need it (PRO only)
How it all works 
1. Install and activate the plugin. 
2. Go to Spam Mute in your WordPress admin sidebar. 
3. Read the opt-in notice and confirm you’re cool with the fact that spam comments will be permanently discarded. 
4. Tweak your detection settings — honeypot, speed check, link limit, keyword blacklist. 
5. Set Spam Protection to Active and let the silence begin.
That’s it. The 9 Dollar Comment Spam Mute works in the background, quietly doing its thing. Zero-Touch.
<h3>Important notice</h3>
Spam comments are permanently deleted. 
There is no recovery, no trash, no undo. 
A mandatory opt-in ensures you understand this before activation. Nothing happens unless you explicitly enable it.

The 9 Dollar Comment Spam Mute

Auto-discard comment spam before it ever hits your database. Zero-Touch protection — no API keys, no external calls,

AOS Comment Spam Cleanup vs The 9 Dollar Comment Spam Mute