At URTech.ca And our sister websites we use WordPress as our Content Management System (CMS aka publication platform). One of the big problems with having successful websites is the number of scumbags it attracts to your comments. Are companies that are paid a lot of money to add links to other people’s websites in comments like our sites so it’s a constant battle to keep these guys blocked.

One of several different ways we block unwanted comments is through WordPresses built in word blocking feature. This is in SETTINGS > DISCUSSION > DISALLOWED COMMENT KEYS. The problem our new staff constantly come up against relates to how the details for that text box is worded:

When a comment contains any of these words in its content, author name, URL, email, IP address, or browser’s user agent string, it will be put in the Trash. One word or IP address per line. It will match inside words, so “press” will match “WordPress”.

The staff have to ask if blocked words on that list could be blocked phrases. For instance one of the phrases we have been seeing alot lately is “Dell Cinema

The answers are:

  • each line in the field represents a single phrase
  • the phrases do not need to be in quotes i.e. Dell Cinema vs “Dell Cinema”
  • It specifically looks for the exact phrase “Dell Cinema” as entered in the disallowed comment keys list:
    • a comment like “I like visiting the Dell website and looking at their Cinema projectors” would not be blocked
    • Comments with just the word “Dell” will not be affected

We hope this helps you with your WordPress optimizations.



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