Help! My friends WordPress has 86000 Spam Comments!

At Comments -> Spam in your blog’s Dashboard, just click the “Empty Spam” button. ??

But the problem with that is, the comments some how got classified as comments. Not in spam section! ??

Oh, wow that is unfortunate. Were you using Akismet? If so, from the Comments section, try clicking the “Check for Spam” button.

I’m using WordPress 3.5.1, but I’m not quite sure if we are using Akismet, I’m still a newbie to WordPress.

Check the plugin’s section of the blog’s Dashboard. Is a plugin called “Akismet” installed and active?

Also, do you have a button which says “Check for Spam” above the comments list in the Comments section of the blog’s Dashboard?

Also, you should really consider upgrading to WordPress 3.9.2. 3.5.1 has plenty of publicly known security vulnerabilities.

I have activated Akismet, but where would I get the akismet-key-config?

Also if we upgrade to 3.9.2, how will it affect functionality and the webpages/content we already have?

I have activated Akismet, but where would I get the akismet-key-config?

From https://akismet.com/plans/

Also if we upgrade to 3.9.2, how will it affect functionality and the webpages/content we already have?

It shouldn’t affect anything. There really isn’t a reason for anything compatible with 3.5.1 to be incompatible with 3.9.2.

Okay so I upgraded to 3.9.2 and entered the key code for Akismet. I also upgraded to the newest version of Akismet.

However, after all of that I can now only ‘move to spam’ 100 comments at a time? If I try more than 100 comments, I get this:

Request-URI Too Large

The requested URL’s length exceeds the capacity limit for this server.

This 86000 comments is going to take forever if thats the case.

In the Comments section of the blog’s Dashboard, did you try the “Check for Spam” button yet?

I have and it doesn’t narrow down all 86000 comments for me to delete.

@abfabtours: That error The requested URL's length exceeds the capacity limit for this server indicates a limit at your webhost.

If you simply want to delete ALL comments, use https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/adminer/ to look at the database. It’s a database utility. Select the wp_comments and wp_commentmeta tables and “truncate” them. Don’t drop the tables and don’t delete the tables; truncate them. Truncating will clean all comments and commentmeta while leaving the table there for the future. And this method won’t overload the server with a long URL.

Then, select all tables and “optimize.”

I have and it doesn’t narrow down all 86000 comments for me to delete.

The “Check for Spam” button will move spam identified by Akismet to the Spam sub-section of the Comments section of your Dashboard, where it can be removed in bulk by the “Empty Spam” button.

If you are using Akismet, and it is failing to identify 86,000 spam comments, I recommend getting in touch with them via https://akismet.com/contact/

I also get a lot of Spam comments on my website. I want to know if there is any other plugin other than Akismet that can stop spam. I have previously tried Akismet on but now i am thinking of other options.

filmschoolwtf
Rather than introduce your question into an existing thread, please start your own thread, we have an unlimited supply.

There is a plugin which adds a capitcha to comment submission.