What subscription plugin were you using before when you had those 5,000 subscribers, and what subscription plugin are you using now?
Also, where exactly do you see the subscribers listed? Is it in the Users section of your site’s Dashboard?
Hello!
I’m not sure what I was using before?
The subscribers are under the user section of the dashboard.
The current program is “Email Subscribers & Newsletters”
Ok, those folks under your Dashboard’s Users section aren’t actually subscribers.
They’re using WordPress’s registration system, which is separate from all major subscription plugins. In almost all cases, they’re just spam bots preemptively getting around WordPress’s “must be registered and logged in to comment” anti-spam system.
Take a look at Settings > General in your site’s Dashboard, and uncheck “Anyone can Register” and save, this won’t affect Email Subscribers & Newsletters or its subscriptions system, but it will stop those registrations you’re referring to.
Next, at the Users section of your site’s Dashboard, it’s safe to delete any User there listed as a “Subscriber”. Don’t worry about the role’s name. Not only does Email Subscribers & Newsletters not use this, WordPress itself doesn’t even send subscription content. It was the most limited role, created for subscription plugins hence the name, but none use it. I tried to convince the developers to change the role’s name, but it appears to have been denied: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40599
So, to re-cap, switch off “Anyone can Register” at Settings > General, and delete “Subscribers” under Users. This will stop the problem, and it won’t affect Email Subscribers & Newsletters’ subscription system in the least.
Thank you! Really slow service here!
I did uncheck “Anyone can Register” some time ago. Then I had the system scan for span and found about 900 of them.
At the moment, I’m on REALLLLLY slow internet so will have to wait to check things more thoroughly.
Larry
