In my recent post about Blog Spam, Teli recommended using Akismet to control junk comments. I already had the Akismet Plugin installed, but it wasnt yet activated - so I clicked a few buttons and decided to give it a whirl...
The morning I activated it, I had just logged in to find 162 new comments. Two of which were legitimate comments - the rest were blatant spam. It can get quite frustrating to scan through all of the junk so that you can approve actual comments. Not to mention that WP is set up to notify me by email when there are new comments to approve...
Akismet is free to use and easy to install and activate. All you have to do is follow the instructions at akismet.com and you can have it running in under 5 minutes. What happens is that it will 'catch' spam comments and keep them separate from the comments you need to moderate. You can go to the Akismet screen to scan through the comments that were 'caught' if you like, so there is no concern over losing legitimate comments.
These spam comments dont generate an email notification either, so it cuts way down on the junk email, and you only receive notifications by email for legitimate comments.
Here are a couple of screen shots that I took the morning that I activated the Akismet Plugin to give you an idea how it works:
Screenshot 1:
Screenshot 1:
If you are battling Comment Spam on your own blog, I would highly recommend using this free plugin! (Thanks, Teli!!)
Best,
Technorati Tags: blog spam, comment spam, akismet, wordpress plugins
About Lynn Terry
You're welcome Lynn :). Glad to help you combat your spam!
Just a note, if you're not already running it, version 2.0 of the plugin is out and it has a nifty new feature to "recheck" the comments in your moderation queue to see if any spam slipped through. This is in case the Akismet service goes down momentarily and some spam slips through.
~ Teli
Thank you! 😀
I am definitely going to activate this plugin. I get so much spam comments that I had given up on looking for the legitimate ones.
Thanks for sharing this!!!
Hi,
I recently linked to your blog and I was wondering if you would link to mine. It is,
delicioushomecooking.blogspot.com
Thanks,
Sue
Hi Sue - Sure! I added a link to your blog on my PPP Blogroll 🙂
Love akismet... it may catch some real comments occassionally, but I just look through them everyday and they're pretty easy to scan - unmark all the real ones and kill the rest - easier than going through it than the regular comment section.
I don't know how I lived before Akismet. I finally took the time to install it on all my blogs, I couldn't take the comment spam anymore!
Thanks for the tip Teli 😉
Kudo's for Akismet Only possible drawback is the need to have a wordpress.com blog in order to get the API key needed to activate the plug-in. This is a minor quibble.
I activated Akismet late last year and to date I've blocked 236 spam comments.
1,249 spam comments caught here so far, in about a week! 😯
Lynn,
I was surprised at the numbers my first few weeks too. It's insane.
Actually, you don't need a wp.com blog, just an account. You can just sign up for a username/API key if you don't need or want to go through the hassle of setting up a wp.com blog. 🙂
On the sign up page, just make sure that "Just a username, please" is selected. The good news is that you can use this single API key on multiple blogs that you run.
~ Teli
Hey Lynn, I have been using the Akismet plug-in for some time now and I can attest to the fact that this really helps combat blog spam. I don’t know what I would do without it.
Great blog and keep up the good work
I've never had a problem with spam yet. I dont know i just never had a problem in any of my blogs. That sucks, but Akismet is one of the best programs I know for spam blockers. so you're friend was right 🙂
I know several bloggers are turning off comments altogether because they're tired of fighting all the spam.
I hope this doesn't become the norm because without the comments and getting to know your site visitors, why blog?
I agree Mark... this is NOT a solution in my opinion. The whole point of blogging is Social Networking and interactivity. Otherwise, why not publish a static HTML website?!
Askimet is awesome. I installed it once and never had any problems with spam again.
Oh my I agree 100% Mark ... I'd rather just l deal with all the spam than even consider moving the comments option 🙁
Thanks for sharing your feelings about this plugin! It was already installed on my blog. Not sure why we never activated it.