How to Deny Comment No Referrer Requests in WordPress

Are you looking for a way to check the referrer when a user posts a comment to verify if they are not a BOT? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to deny comment no referrer requests in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function check_referrer() {
   if (!isset($_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']) || $_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] == “”) {
       wp_die( __(‘Please enable referrers in your browser, or, if you\’re a spammer, bugger off!’) );
   }
}
add_action(‘check_comment_flood’, ‘check_referrer’);

Thanks to Joost de Valk for this code snippet.

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 7 best WordPress calendar plugins and how to use Google Optimize in WordPress.