Title: Spammy Trackbacks/Pingbacks Last modified: July 31, 2021 --- # Spammy Trackbacks/Pingbacks * Resolved [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * (@jcatbic) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/) * I’ve been getting spammy trackbacks/pingbacks all over our site. I’ve turned off allowing them in WP Discussion Settings and also left “Do not check trackbacks/ pingbacks No spam check for link notifications” on Antispam Bee unchecked. New ones keep happening anyway. What is going on? * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fspammy-trackbacks-pingbacks%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to see the link]_ Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) * Plugin Contributor [Torsten Landsiedel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zodiac1978/) * (@zodiac1978) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14723855) * Hi [@jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * if you turned off “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks)” in the WP discussion settings this shouldn’t happen at all. * Does this began after our latest update or was the problem seen before? * All the best Torsten * Thread Starter [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * (@jcatbic) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14724230) * Not sure when the last update was. This has been happening for about 2-3 weeks. I’m deleting about 10 spammy trackbacks per day per day. I’ve never seen them before. I had trackbacks on until this happened without issue. Now it’s off and still happening. * Plugin Contributor [Torsten Landsiedel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zodiac1978/) * (@zodiac1978) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14724816) * [@jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) This needs more debugging. Can you please send us a list of your active theme and plugins. Are you using the latest WP version? Have you access to the access logs? * Can you send us the trackbacks through our report form? * Thanks in advance! * All the best Torsten * Thread Starter [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * (@jcatbic) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14725531) * Sure. Yes, latest version. I’m not sure on access logs. Where is the report form? - This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/). * Plugin Contributor [Torsten Landsiedel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zodiac1978/) * (@zodiac1978) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14726264) * Hi [@jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * the link can be found in the FAQ. Here it is: [http://goo.gl/forms/ITzVHXkLVL](http://goo.gl/forms/ITzVHXkLVL) * Any chance to provide us a list of your active theme and plugins? * All the best Torsten * Thread Starter [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * (@jcatbic) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14728332) * Ok. I sent 2 over. * My theme is Divi Theme * Active plugins: * Advanced Editor Tools (previously TinyMCE Advanced) Antispam Bee Content Views Pro Featured Image in RSS Feed by MailerLite GS Logo Slider Lite LiteSpeed Cache Official MailerLite Sign Up Forms One Click Accessibility Page Links To Really Simple SSL Robo Gallery Simple Author Box Site Kit by Google Torro Forms Wordfence Security WP Google Search WPForms Yoast SEO * Plugin Contributor [Torsten Landsiedel](https://wordpress.org/support/users/zodiac1978/) * (@zodiac1978) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14729379) * Hi [@jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * you wrote “I’ve turned off allowing them in WP Discussion Settings”, but these are just the default settings for *new* posts. * See: [https://wordpress.org/support/article/settings-discussion-screen/#default-article-setting](https://wordpress.org/support/article/settings-discussion-screen/#default-article-setting) * This does not change the status for existing posts, therefore these posts are still receiving trackbacks. * You need to disable this setting on each post: [https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-disable-trackbacks-and-pings-on-existing-wordpress-posts/](https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-disable-trackbacks-and-pings-on-existing-wordpress-posts/) * If you mark those trackbacks as spam this could help if you utilize the local spam db (the comments in the “spam” list from your comments). But this just works if the spammer is using something similar (same IP, same E-Mail, etc.), so we can detect it. Nowadays most spam is coming from botnets so it is not easy to detect it, because these values change with every spam trackback/comment. * You can also try to use the blocklist in WordPress to stop spam on detected “ bad words”. We are having this plugin ([https://de.wordpress.org/plugins/blacklist-updater/](https://de.wordpress.org/plugins/blacklist-updater/)) which is using a very big list ([https://github.com/splorp/wordpress-comment-blacklist](https://github.com/splorp/wordpress-comment-blacklist)). * But you can also grab just parts of it and use your own version without any automatic updates. * Hope this helps! * All the best Torsten * Thread Starter [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * (@jcatbic) * [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14730639) * I just did that and will assume it worked. Have a good one and thanks for the help! Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total) The topic ‘Spammy Trackbacks/Pingbacks’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/antispam-bee/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=2898402) * [Antispam Bee](https://wordpress.org/plugins/antispam-bee/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/antispam-bee/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/antispam-bee/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/antispam-bee/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/antispam-bee/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/antispam-bee/reviews/) * 8 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [jcatbic](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jcatbic/) * Last activity: [4 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/spammy-trackbacks-pingbacks/#post-14730639) * Status: resolved