{"id":2400,"date":"2012-10-15T21:36:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T01:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/2012\/10\/15\/321-wordpress-comment-spam-search\/"},"modified":"2022-02-23T11:37:06","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T16:37:06","slug":"wordpress-comment-spam-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inmotionhosting.com\/support\/edu\/wordpress\/wordpress-comment-spam-search\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress advanced comment spam clean up with search"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article we\u2019ll discuss a method for cleaning up spam comments from your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin.<\/p>\n

If you followed along with our previous\u00a0320: WordPress comment spam clean up<\/a> article this would be one of the more advanced methods mentioned in that article.<\/p>\n

Our next article in this series 322: WordPress advanced comment spam clean up with query<\/a> is an even more advanced method to help remove comment spam from your database.<\/p>\n

Multiple entry removal via search<\/h2>\n

In our previous example from the first comment spam clean up article we noticed that a lot of the comment_author<\/strong> spam had the word \u201cpayday\u201d<\/em><\/strong> in it with variations. You can utilize the Search<\/strong> functionality of phpMyAdmin to help in the process of finding all of these entries and quickly removing them.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First you\u2019ll need to get to your WordPress database via the phpMyAdmin interface<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Click on the Search<\/strong> tab at the top
    \"wp-comments-search-tab\"<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. In the first field Word(s) or value(s) to search for:<\/strong> type %payday%<\/strong>.
    The reason you place a %<\/strong> symbol at the beginning and end of the word
    is because that means a wildcard character (any character at all).
    This way we\u2019ll find entries for loan payday<\/strong> as well as payday loans<\/strong>.\n

    Leave the Find:<\/strong> option as the default of at least one of the words<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    In the Inside table(s):<\/strong> menu click on wp_comments<\/strong> to only search within that table<\/p>\n

    Next to the Inside column:<\/strong> field enter in comment_author<\/strong>, then finally click Go<\/strong>\"wp-comments-search-values\"<\/a><\/p>\n

  4. Click on Browse<\/strong> to see the results of your search \"wp-comments-search-browse\"<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  5. You\u2019ll notice we have 103<\/strong> matches for our search, but we\u2019re only seeing rows 0-29<\/strong>, because of the default entry beside Show:<\/strong> of only 30
    \"wp-comments-search-display-default-30\"<\/a>\n
  6. Now in this case because we\u2019re looking at just the comment_author<\/strong> field, it\u2019s very unlikely a legitimate comment user is going to use the word \u201cpayday\u201d<\/strong> anywhere in their name. So scroll to the very bottom of the page and click on Check All\"wp-comments-search-check-all\"<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n

    <\/p><\/strong><\/li>\n

  7. Now that all entries have been checked, click on the Delete<\/strong> icon at the bottom\"wp-comments-search-check-all-delete\"<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  8. Now scroll to the bottom of all the DELETE confirmations, and click Yes<\/strong>
    \"wp-comments-search-confirm-delete-top\"<\/a>\n
    <\/div>\n

    \"wp-comments-search-confirm-delete-bottom\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n

    Finally you should see MySQL return an empty result set, as it\u2019s trying to do our search again, but now all those entries have been removed\"wp-comments-search-confirm-delete-done\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In this article we\u2019ll discuss a method for cleaning up spam comments from your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin. If you followed along with our previous\u00a0320: WordPress comment spam clean up article this would be one of the more advanced methods mentioned in that article. Our next article in this series 322: WordPress advanced comment spam Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57014,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wordpress"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWordPress advanced comment spam clean up with search | InMotion Hosting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In this article we'll explain how to use phpMyAdmin's search functionality to help clean up WordPress comment spam from the database.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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