Overview
Spam comments can degrade the quality of your blog and create a poor experience for readers. Postnomic provides several tools and strategies to prevent spam and keep your comment sections clean and productive.
Required Fields Strategy
The most effective first line of defense against automated spam is requiring commenters to provide identifying information. Configure required fields under Settings → Comments:
Recommended Configuration
- Name — Always require. Forces commenters to identify themselves and deters low-effort spam bots.
- Email — Strongly recommended. Adds accountability and enables follow-up. Many spam bots cannot provide valid email addresses.
- Phone — Optional. Only require if your use case demands it. Requiring phone numbers reduces legitimate engagement.
The combination of required name and email blocks the majority of automated spam while keeping the barrier to entry low for genuine readers.
Comment Moderation
Enabling comment moderation is the strongest spam prevention tool. When moderation is active:
- All comments enter a Pending state and are invisible to readers
- You review each comment before it appears on your blog
- Spam never reaches your public content
- You can mark spam comments with the Spam status for tracking
While moderation requires manual effort, it guarantees that no unwanted content appears on your blog.
The Moderation Queue
Access the moderation queue from Comments in your blog dashboard. Review pending comments and take action:
- Approve genuine comments
- Reject off-topic or inappropriate comments
- Mark as Spam to flag automated or promotional content
Best Practices
For Small Blogs
If your blog receives a manageable volume of comments:
- Enable moderation — Review every comment before it appears
- Require name and email — Block the simplest spam bots
- Check the queue regularly — Respond to legitimate comments promptly to encourage engagement
For High-Traffic Blogs
If your blog receives many comments daily:
- Require name and email — Filter out automated spam at the form level
- Enable moderation — Prevent spam from appearing publicly
- Assign moderation duties — Use the Editor or Admin roles to distribute moderation across team members
- Use bulk actions — Select multiple spam comments and reject them at once
General Guidelines
- Review comments daily — Do not let the moderation queue grow too large, as legitimate commenters expect timely approval
- Do not over-restrict — Requiring too many fields (especially phone) discourages real engagement
- Monitor patterns — Watch for repeated spam patterns (specific keywords, URLs, or names) to identify trends
- Keep rejected comments — Postnomic retains rejected and spam-flagged comments in case you need to reference them later
Spam Indicators
When reviewing comments, look for common spam characteristics:
- Generic content — Vague praise like "Great post!" with no specific reference to the content
- Suspicious URLs — Links to unrelated commercial sites
- Keyword stuffing — Excessive repetition of product or service names
- Irrelevant content — Comments that have nothing to do with the post topic
- Duplicate submissions — The same comment posted on multiple posts
What Postnomic Does Not Do
Postnomic currently does not include:
- Automated spam detection or machine learning filters
- CAPTCHA integration
- IP-based blocking
These features may be added in future releases. For now, the combination of required fields and manual moderation provides effective spam control for most blogs.