Cleaning Up Comment Spam In The Database
January 20. 2020
Have you been using WordPress for a while? In the beginning, everything was running smoothly. But over time, your database accumulated a lot of extra data in the form of trashed and spam comments. The problem begins when your website starts slowing down due to this unnecessary data build-up. In a situation such as this one, the first thing you need to do is remove all of this unnecessary data, which will reduce your database size and speed up your backup process. And since cleaning up comment spam in the database will be so beneficial, you should include it in your regular maintenance plan.
Of course, you can always turn to us here at WP Full Care if in dire need of efficient maintenance of your website. We’ll ensure everything runs smoothly and trouble-free, saving you the trouble of having to be on constant watch of your website.
Where to start?
How long have you been an owner of a WordPress website? Unless you are brand-new to the WordPress world and are just learning how to use WP, you have probably learned a lot so far through trial and error. And, surely, one of your main lessons was to always back up your website before performing any sorts of changes.
When it comes to maintaining your website, frequent offsite backups are a mandatory part of the process. While it’s important to have a recent restore point after a security breach, it’s just as important to have one when making changes to your site and updating any plugins. In this instance, the cleanup plugin will make changes that are irreversible. While these plugins won’t mess with your posts and regular comments, it’s better to make a copy just in case. After all, plugins are known to contain many glitches and, as a website owner, it’s your job to prevent them from affecting your website.
Cleaning up comment spam in the database
As always, the thing that will come to your rescue is a super-useful plugin that targets a quick and effective clean up of your database. Plugins are known to be a great way to undertake different tasks and add lots of extra features to your website. And the plugin we are referring to in this case is a very useful one – WP-Sweep.
Why should you use WP-Sweep for cleaning up your comment spam?
Developed by Lester Chan, a well-respected WordPress developer, WP-Sweep is a tool that will help you keep your database free from any unnecessary data, including spam comments. It will start by analyzing your website and showing you an extensive report on how much clutter you can free up. Within this report, you will certainly see an item that will concern spammed, deleted, and duplicated comments. So how do you start using it?
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. Once you finish this starting step, go to Tools > Sweep and simply let the plugin do its magic. And this is when you will see a full report on your piled up clutter. If you plan on using this plugin for deleting spam comments in the database, we strongly suggest you think about clearing the other sections of the report.
You can clean the items in one fell swoop by clicking on sweep all or you can clean each item individually, in which case we assume you will focus on cleaning comment spam in the database. But, once again, if it will help your website to perform better, there is no reason not to clean everything.
Once the cleaning process starts, we advise you to remain patient. If you have a big database, the process could take a while to finish. You will be informed about the progress by the plugin as it will update stats on the page. You will become a regular user of this plugin once you truly witness its full potential. And improved performance and loading speed, of course.
WP-Optimize – the other way to approach this task
WP-Optimize is another popular plugin for cleaning your WordPress database. However, a lot of website owners prefer the above-mentioned option instead of this one. There’s one very important difference between these two plugins. Namely, WP-Sweep functions by using WordPress delete functions as much as possible, whereas WP-Optimize works by using direct SQL queries. These queries can leave orphaned data behind, which would otherwise be avoided with WP-Sweep. After all, with everything that WP-Sweep cleans, it’s proved its worth in gold, as it is a well-coded and super useful cleaning plugin.
That’s it – enjoy your smooth-running website
Once you clean up the comment spam that has piled up on your database and you, hopefully, clean the rest of the database with it, you are bound to see improved website speed. The reduced database size and the minor performance improvements will work wonders for your WordPress website. And since extra data accumulates with time, you should not view this cleaning as a one-time thing. Frequent clean-ups are mandatory if you want to keep your website functioning at its optimal speed and capacity.
Once you successfully undertake this task, you will have to admit that cleaning up comment spam in the database isn’t the most difficult job in the world. That’s due to a plugin that does most of the work for you. However, you won’t be so lucky with other maintenance-related tasks. If you are feeling too overwhelmed with everything that includes complete WordPress website maintenance, feel free to get in touch with us. Our team specializes in website maintenance of all WordPress websites. Choose the package that best suits your needs and budget and worry not about a thing. Our services are at your complete disposal after that initial phone call.