WordPress can hold comments for approval before they appear on your blog. While this keeps spammers at bay, you want to use this feature as little as possible. Comments should generally appear on the blog immediately. Why?
- WordPress normally does not notify the commenter that his or her comment is being held for moderation. Instead the page just refreshes…. A usability nightmare.
- It disrupts the flow of the conversation. Comments will repeat themselves, questions will go unanswered, and windows of opportunity for jokes will be missed.
Do everyone a favor and turn comment approval off. To keep the spam out, here are some tips:
- Turn of comment approval, but use the option that holds a comment for moderation if the comment contains x or more links. Set the number to three, or something a little higher than two. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to put more than one link in a comment.
- Use Akismet. It will save you a lot of headaches.
- Optionally, use a CAPTCHA plugin.
