crumbled-up sheets of yellow paper on the floor by a metal wastebasket

Recognizing and managing AI-slop comments

Though these AI-generated comments may seem innocent at first, they usually have a secret agenda.

Christina Blust
July 23, 2026
Tips & Guides
2 mins

A number of our clients publish stories and reflections that welcome comments. All in all, this has worked out well for them! Over the years, website visitors have shared reactions, gratitude, and questions via the posts’ comment feature. And we set up tools to dispose of obvious spam comments automatically.

But lately, we’ve noticed a trend of spam AI-slop comments that evade these spam filters. 🙁 Instead of hawking prescription drugs and online gambling like the more obvious spammers do, these comments use AI tools to sneak in by seeming human.

Some clues

Some general clues that a comment is not from a real person include:

that it’s very well-written (ironically) with lots of adverbs
that it asks a question at the end
that its author’s website is included and very unrelated to the topic at hand

This example comment from a client’s WordPress site shows all three of these things in action. At first glance it appears to be very thoughtfully engaging with the story about food insecurity. But it’s very wordy, it asks a question at the end (sometimes called “engagement farming”) … and its associated linked website is to a payday loans site nowhere near the client’s location. Spammy!

A screenshot of a comment on a post that exhibits markers of AI slop. Though the post is about food insecurity, the linked website is to a payday loans site. — A spammy comment awaiting approval in the backend of a WordPress website

What to do about it

You have two choices of how to handle this in your WordPress site.

Option #1: Remove the URL

Use the little “X” after the URL below the commenter’s name to remove the dumb URL from the comment. This way, it will not show as a link on the front end of your website, and the commenter/bot doesn’t get to use your website to improve their URL’s trustworthiness.

detail of a screenshot showing the commenter's name with a website URL below, followed by a little "X" to remove it — Click that X to remove the URL

Option #2: Trash the comment entirely

It’s often the better choice to trash the comment entirely. It was not written by a real person, so do you really want to publish it on your website? Mark as spam and move on.

(If the comment was previously approved but now you want to trash it, hover over the comment and choose “Trash.”)