It is a shame that there are folk in the world that have nothing better to do that try and irritate others. Sadly that is the way it is. Inevitably, having only set the blog up a week ago and wanting to allow genuine users to register, I started to get unwanted registrations.
What to do about it? A quick Google identified a blog that led me to a plugin to block registrations from certain domains called Ban Hammer. Once installed you need to manually include a list of domains. Again quick search found a list on GitHub which was quickly copied and included.
On further digging though, I discovered that the under the settings for comments, there is a blacklist of domains. As my new registrees email domains were on the blacklist I presume WordPress prevented them posting a comment. Shame it did not prevent them registering in the first place.
I have suggested to the author of Ban Hammer he uses the same blacklist – I’ll see where that goes. In the meantime I also found a plugin to keep the main blacklist up to date – presumably, without this addin, it is only updated when WordPress itself is updated. Simply called Blacklist Updater it checks for updates from GitHub twice a day.
There are some other suggestions on WPBeginner for reducing spam. Happy hunting.
Update
I had a response from the Author of Ban Hammer saying that the aim of the plugin was to stop specific trolls etc. I’ve added in all the blacklist entries and I have not had anyone register an account since, so despite not being designed for it, it still seems to work.
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