Stopping comment spam on your WordPress site using Akismet

Picture showing Akismet comment spam logo and descriptionThis article explains comment spam is and how Akismet can be used to combat it.

Comment spam occurs when some enterprising soul (aka a comment spammer) sets one of their comment-bots the task of adding comments to your beautifully crafted blog posts. These comments usually relate to you-beaut-discount insurance deals, dodgy pharmaceuticals or Viagra.

Comment Spam example

Why would the comment spammers want to do this? Well, if they can get links to their site on your blog, it may fool Google, Yahoo etc into thinking that a lot of sites are linking to their dodgy-pharma site, and increase its ranking in the search engines. At the same time, if the search engines decide the pharma site is dodgy and your site is linking to it, it could cause them to treat your site as suspect as well. Comment spam is one of the nasty tactics used by unscrupulous search engine optimization ‘black hats’, and you don’t want to be burdened by it.

How do I stop comment spam?

WordPress sites can use the Akismet plugin to stop comment spam in its tracks. This plugin is extremely effective, and if any comment spam does get past, you get to mark it as comment spam (before it appears), and Akismet learns. This benefits the whole WordPress community, as well as you.

Example of Comment Spam caught by Akismet

Activating Akismet

The Akismet plugin is installed by default on all WordPress blogs. You need to activate it. You do this by logging in to your site, going to Plugins, and clicking the Activate button for the Akismet plugin.

Akismet is now active, but won’t work until you enter a WordPress API key.

What is a WordPress API key and how do I get one?

Here is the WordPress explanation of an API key.

Using a WordPress API for Akismet is free for personal/non-commercial use, but you need a licence for commercial use. Pricing is summarised below, but full pricing is on the Akismet site:

  • Personal Bloggers. Akismet is free for personal bloggers.
  • Pro Bloggers. If you start to earn more than $500/month from your blogging, you should buy a Pro Blogger Akismet licence, for $5/mth.
  • Not for Profits. Not for profit organisations can use Akismet for free if they place a link to wordpress.com or akismet.com on every page. To arrange this in your PublicityShip site, copy the text below, login in to your site and go to Presentation, PublicityShip Options, Footer Text and paste this in after your existing footer:
    •  Protected by Akismet
  • Commercial use. If you are using a blog for commercial purposes, then you need to purchase an Enterprise API key. The cost of these starts at $50US per month, pricing is available at Akismet.

To get your own WordPress API key:

  1. Go to wordpress.com
  2. Sign up – signing up for a free WordPress blog or just a WordPress username will give you a WordPress API key
  3. Go to My Account, choose Edit Profile and your WordPress API key will be displayed
  4. Copy your API key to your clipboard
  5. Go to the Akismet plugin configuration in your main blog (Dashboard, Plugins, Akismet Configuration) and paste in your API key