KOZ URL-Only Comment Spam is a focused moderation tool for a common low-effort spam pattern: comments containing only one or more links. It can send matching comments directly to spam or hold them for manual moderation while ordinary comments continue through the normal WordPress workflow.
The detector removes HTML and invisible spacing characters before checking the visible content. It can exempt logged-in users, trust same-site links and approved domains, and lets an administrator test a sample without saving that sample.
Version 1.2.0 adds more local rules, each with its own action (hold, spam, reject without saving or off):
- Links with very little text: an untrusted link plus a short phrase such as “Great post!”. Links to your own site never trigger it.
- Website field with very little text: no links in the text, but the Website field points to an untrusted site (your own site is always trusted here).
- Hidden trap field: an invisible honeypot field that people never see and bots often fill in.
- Submitted too fast: the form was sent within a few seconds of the page being generated. Works with page caching.
- Comment form token missing (off by default): the comment did not come from the site’s comment form.
Links are also found in HTML anchors, BBCode and Markdown, and simple disguises such as hxxp:// or example[.]com are undone before checking. Bare names such as example.com count as links only with a known top-level domain, so a comment like “Node.js” is not treated as a link.
Each handled comment gets its rule in a Spam reason column with a filter on the Comments screen. A dashboard widget and the settings page show daily counts per rule. Old spam can optionally be deleted automatically after a chosen number of days.
Privacy remains deliberately limited. The plugin stores no comment text, detected URL, IP address, email, referrer, cookie, fingerprint or user-agent value. It stores only aggregate counts per day and rule, a small summary of the latest match and the rule key on handled comments.
Use case: a public website receives repeated comments made entirely of promotional URLs. The plugin removes that noise before it reaches the normal review queue, without sending comment data to an external service.
Use case: a community site permits internal resource links but wants external URL-only comments reviewed. Trusted-domain settings allow internal destinations while suspicious external links are handled automatically.
The plugin was originally developed for the UA FREE charitable foundation website, which remains a production test environment. Development and ownership belong to Tony Kozyriev (ramirkz). Foundation donations and developer support are separate.
Part of the KOZ Suite
KOZ URL-Only Comment Spam is one focused module of the broader KOZ Suite, a family of independent WordPress plugins that share a common KOZ administration experience and visual identity.
Each KOZ plugin remains independently installable, so site owners can use only the modules they need or combine several modules into one toolkit.
Current public KOZ plugins:
- KOZ SEO Core — technical SEO, schema, sitemaps, AI discovery and OpenAI Vision image ALT.
- KOZ Copy Actions — accessible copy-to-clipboard actions for selected WordPress content.
- KOZ URL-Only Comment Spam — privacy-first local moderation for URL-only comment spam.
- KOZ Static Translate — AI-powered multilingual translation with Microsoft Azure AI Translator and static language routes.
- KOZ Translate Diagnostics — read-only health checks and privacy-safe diagnostic reports for KOZ Static Translate.
- KOZ 404 Guard & URL Intelligence — privacy-safe 404/410 diagnostics, controlled same-site redirects and URL intelligence.
- KOZ Consent Manager — privacy-first visitor consent, optional script control and Google Consent Mode v2 synchronization.
- KOZ Donate Stats & Conversions — local donation-journey analytics and consent-aware conversion events for WordPress.
- KOZ Site Bridge — secure read-only WordPress diagnostics, controlled same-site probes and authenticated REST automation.