Comment Spam Hit Redline Last Couple Days…
This past weekend was spent deleting or moderating comment spam. I couldn’t figure it out & it drove me crazy. All weekend long it was delete, moderate, delete, moderate…. on and on. Kept checking my settings, looking at my comment page in the admin section. Everything looked OK - it just didn’t make sense. How could so much spam be getting through?
Well sometimes I look so hard at the trees… I fail to see the forest!
Today I noticed while looking at the plugin directory that Akismet had been deleted. I did delete a few plugins Friday that I was no longer using, but I don’t recall deleting Akismet. Since no one else has access to the admin panel… theres’ no one to blame but me.
Bummer - It’s always funner to pass the buck. 
Anyhow I reinstalled Akismet & made a few other changes to help combat comment spam. Akismet is a good comment spam plugin. However it does have one big drawback. It will occasionally mark as spam a legit comment. Therefore it requires me to go through the Akismet queue and make sure a legit one didn’t get caught.
There are some people who refuse to use Akismet for this reason. But like I said it hasn’t become that big of problem for me.
How to get Akismet
It simple… head over to Akismet, and download it. Unzip the file & upload it to your plugin folder. This is usually located in the wp-content/plugins folder.
Next you have to activate the plugin. Once you activate the plugin you should see a Akismet configuration. You will need to get an API Key from Wordpress.com. At Wordpress.com you will have to sign up for an account. Make sure you go to Wordpress.com & not Wordpress.org.
Once you are at Wordpress.com click on the sign up now button. Fill out the information, check the Just a username, please button, and click next. They will send you a confirmation email. Once you confirm your account you’ll get your API Key.
The last step is to take your API Key & add it to the Akismet configuration page on your blog. Hit update & Akismet takes over from there.
I like Akismet because for me it’s pretty low maintenance. Head on over & get if you’d like to get some relief from comment spam.
It catches a legit comment here and there but overall it works really well. Mostly its legit comments with links that get caught so it shouldn’t be a big worry.
Nishadha
24 Jun 08 at 3:51 am
I love Akismet. it’s the only one I use and never needed anything else…not even an inkling of needing anything else.
I too hear others moan about it. Yea sure it catches a legit one from time to time…I’m in my blog almost daily anyway, so the extra few seconds isn’t going to kill me.
When something so small is the ONLY complaint, combined with complaining often, I seriously reconsider if I even want to continue reading that blog.
Get over yourselves LOL
Dennis Edell
24 Jun 08 at 10:34 pm
Btw, is it still standard on the new 2.5+ uploads? I ask because I found it odd to give FTP instructions for it.
Dennis Edell
24 Jun 08 at 10:35 pm
Don’t know Dennis… I’ve been a total slacker on upgrading to 2.5
Keith Goodrum
24 Jun 08 at 10:50 pm
Me too and I have no plans to do it anytime soon.
Dennis Edell
25 Jun 08 at 1:08 am