How to Delete Spam Users in WordPress

One of the best things about using WordPress to publish information for the web is the fact that it is interactive. Viewers can subscribe to your blog and then post comments and interact with other users on the site. Unfortunately, spammers invade the users list as well and cause your database to swell with junk.

I can control the comments on a site by allowing only registered users to post and reviewing the posts before approving them. Spam users are a whole different issues though. As you can see from the screenshot below, one of my sites iPadastic.com has well over 900 subscribers.

 

 

However, looking at this list of users I can tell 90% or more are spam users with no posts, comments, or anything else. A bot registered a fake name and email and moved on. This clutters your database and opens your site to the possibility of hackers attacking your site through a registered user account. The extra overhead will also cause your site to run slower.

Follow these steps to quickly and easily remove these spam users and clean up your database.

1) Log into your WordPress site

2) Click on Plugins, Add New

3) Search for and install one of the following plugins to delete spam users

Inactive User Deleter – allows you to quickly and easily remove users based on whether they have commented or posted anything to your site.

Clobber Spam Users – this plugin will stop bots from adding multiple users to your site and allow you to delete spam users

 4) Activate the plugin

5) Search for and delete spam users

There are other plugins that do similar things, however the two shown above work great for deleting unwanted users from your site.

Tagged with: Add New • Clobber Spam Users • delete spam users • Inactive User Deleter

Filed under: Tutorials

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