Alex Mills

When it comes to spam and <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Pingbacks" rel="nofollow ugc">pingbacks</a>/<a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Trackbacks" rel="nofollow ugc">trackbacks</a>, the vast majority by far is via trackbacks rather than pingbacks. Very, very few people use trackbacks for legitimate uses anymore (I’ve gotten less than 5 in the last 8 months) as WordPress, etc. all use pingbacks now as their primary ping method.
I had already installed <a href="http://ocaoimh.ie/cookies-for-comments/" rel="nofollow ugc">Cookies For Comments</a> which successfully stops most spam comments but I still had to deal with the tons of trackback spam. So, I wrote this plugin.
It will disable new trackbacks across your site, both legitimate and spam. However since very few people use trackbacks legitimately, this combined with Cookies For Comments should cut your spam down to next to zero.
Why should I use this plugin over one of those trackback validator plugins?
Most non-Akismet style anti-trackback spam plugins work by connecting to the URL that sent the trackback and looking for a link to your blog. The problem with this is that many spammers actually post links to your blog in their spam posts rendering those types of plugins useless. Even those that check the IP address to make sure it matches are beaten by spam blogs (aka splogs).
In the end it’s up to you what to use for anti-spam, but I personally use Cookies For Comments, this plugin, and then Akismet to catch anything that makes it through.

Disable Trackbacks

Globally disables trackbacks to cut down on spam. Very, very few people legitimately use trackbacks and spammers love them, so it's worthy tradeo …

Sander van Dragt

Introducing Hide Trackbacks – keep the benefits of track- and pingbacks (know when someone writes about posts) while keeping the comments clean and uncluttered.
After enabling the plugin, trackbacks and pingbacks are no longer shown on your posts and the comment count is updated correctly to reflect this. They remain accessible via the admin panel.
Original code created by <a href="http://www.honeytechblog.com/how-to-remove-tracbacks-and-pings-from-wordpress-posts/" rel="nofollow ugc">Honey Singh</a> (used with permission of the author).

Hide Trackbacks

Prevents trackbacks and pingbacks from showing up as comments on posts.

Disable Trackbacks vs Hide Trackbacks