The easiest way to block comment spam or abusive readers from your blog is to use the "comment blacklist" service provided within the WordPress dashboard.

You can block anyone from posting a future comment on your blog, simply by adding their name, email address, URL or IP address to the comment blacklist section.

In my opinion blocking users via their IP address is the best option. Blocking someone via their name might not be a good idea, since someone else with the same name might try to publish a genuine comment. Blocking spammers via their email address doesn't really work either, since the spammers tend to use lots of different email accounts!

So in order to block a user via their IP address, you simply need to copy the IP address from the comment and then add it to the Comment Blacklist section within WordPress.

Let me show you how...

The IP address can be found under every comment that we receive in WordPress. Simply copy this by highlighting the text and copying it (right click, copy or CTRL and C).

If you have lots of spam comments that you would like to block you should collect the IP addresses on a separate document.

I have created a comment blacklist within Microsoft Word...

Once you have collected the offending IP addresses, you simply need to paste them into the blacklist section of WordPress.

From your WordPress dashboard go to the "discussion" section found under your WordPress settings...

You then need to paste the IP addresses into the comment blacklist section. Simply add one IP address per line and then press save at the bottom of the screen.

Click next to conclude this training...