I recently wrote about Configuring your Wordpress Comments, but that is only the beginning!  Now that people can write comments on your blog, you now have the task of moderating these comments.

I know, some of your are wondering “Who is going to write something bad, anyway?”  My sister actually asked me this about her San Diego Mom blog.  I said “you’d be surprised” and within two days of turning on her comments, she started to see the garbage (called blog spam or comment spam) to appear.

The moral here is that you do need to set some limits to what and when you want your user comments to appear in the blog post.   There are three main categories of moderation:

1. No moderation - Post everything immediately.  I discourage this because it is a gigantic opening for spammers and “inappropriate” comments.  Comments like “You Suck” for “F’ this Blog” is not good for your social presence.  Of course, no moderation means no work.  Still, I discourage this course of action.
2. Moderation with Rules - This is what I recommend to most people.  Usually, I prefer to “moderate” any comment that has a link in it.  Why?  First, links are SEO candy and spammers seek these opportunities out.  So my rule will be to “hold” any comment and not post it until I review the comment and either approve or disapprove it.  You can set up Wordpress to send you an email when a comment is held in moderation.  I always, by default, tell Wordpress to email ALL comments, even if it “passes” the test (which WILL automatically approve and post the comment!).  Remember, you can always remove (disapprove) a comment after it has been automatically approved.
3. Moderate Everything - In this case, every comment must be manually approved by you.  This is, of course, the safest way of protecting your blog from any malicious comments or spam.  Still, this is the most labor intensive and from a social networking stand-point, may discourage visitors from commenting in the future (since their comment is not immediately posted).

You need to choose the best method of moderation for you and your Wordpress blog.  I prefer to moderate with rules, but depending on your blog and your time, you may want to make this stricter or easier to comment.

And even with setting these rules, blog SPAM is still a problem!  Next posting, I’ll talk about the Akismet Anti-Spam plug-in to help you tons of moderation time.

cheers…matt

P.S. Don’t have a Wordpress blog and want me to set one up for you for only 19 CENTS/Day?  Check out this at: Personal Wordpress Blog Offer