One of the first questions I get after handing someone their shiny new website is: How do I moderate comments? It’s pretty simple and straight forward – here are the steps to moderating comments in WordPress.

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To begin moderating your comments, you want to start by logging in to your WordPress dashboard. This is where you go to login to the backend of your site. The address you put into your browser should be  {yourdomainname.com/wp-admin} and when pointed, should look something like this:

You will then notice on your Dashboard that there are two places to access your comments. New comments will show up in the “At a Glance” section as “# in moderation” and also on the left navigation bar with an orange indicator of the actual number you have left to moderate. Click on either place to begin making changes.

You are now in the comments screen. Hover over the comment and the following options will be available: Approve, Reply, Quick Edit, Edit, Spam and Trash. It is recommended that you read each comment, as well as the email address associated with the Commenter. Spam comments can be tricky; however you can almost always tell from a “fishy” looking email or URL.

Why do you want to mark a comment as spam versus just deleting the comment? Marking a comment as “spam” tells your website that the person and the IP address creating and sending the comment is actually a spammer – it will not allow any more comments from this person or IP on your website.

You can also reply to your comments within this dashboard. To do so, choose “reply” PRIOR to choosing “approve.” This will allow you to actually reply, approve and post both comments at virtually the same time.

Once you have replied and approved your comment, you will receive confirmation with a display that looks like this:

After moderating your comments, you will notice that those you choose to mark as “spam” are actually still sitting on your site and server. Navigate to the spam comments (you will note that in my illustration there are 9 comments). To delete them, you will want to choose the box (it will be blank – with no checkmark) next to the “Author” heading. This will select all of the spam comments.

Go to “bulk actions” and choose the down carrot to the right of it. This will open the drop down menu. Choose “delete permanently” and then click “apply.” This will delete the spam comments from your website.

That’s it!

Tiffany