If you are using WordPress, and you aren’t using the built-in plugin “Akismet”, are you insane? Or are you a bit confused about that API Key thing you need?
See, you need that plugin. Or at least you will once the comment spammers find you. It is a shared comment spam catcher. The more people who use it, the more effective it becomes. Most importantly, it is incredibly good at its job. In the last couple days on my blog, Akismet has stopped over 30 spams with no false positives. It only missed one, and that one was extra-tricky.
Getting your API Key, step-by-step
- Go to wordpress.com.
- Click on Get a wordpress blog now.
- Signup, don’t worry about the name, since you aren’t going to use the blog. It is free.
- Once you are signed up, go to your admin pages, and click on the “users” tab.
- At the top of the users page, it shows your API key!
- Copy that key.
Activating Akismet
- Go to the admin pages for your soon-to-be-spam-free blog.
- Click on “plugins”
- Click “Activate” on Akismet.
- Now, click on “Akismet configuration” at the top of the plugin page, just below the main tabs
- Paste your api key.
- Enjoy a mostly spam-free blog
- Go and review/delete your spam from the manage admin tab every once in a while.
- Laugh at the silly spammers with your awesome one-click deletion powers!
[tags]blog spam, comment spam, akismet, wordpress[/tags]
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About Bruce Kroeze
You should also try Spam Karma 2 (http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/), that doesn’t rely on remote services as Akismet does and had proven to be as much effective.
Akismet does have the advantage of being less resource intensive though
Spam Karam 2 is okay but i have had better results with Akismet