Wordpress Lets You Do That?

Akismet is a free plugin for non commercial use (relaxed rules from the owner apply) that you install to your Wordpress blog. What the plugin does, is to stop and isolate spam that comes to your blog. This spam is via Pingback, Trackback, and of course via Comments.

These packets of information are first submitted to the Akismet web server to see if those who sent the packet is blacklisted on their own server. As Akismet puts it, they either give it the thumbs up or the thumbs down. The information on their web server is kept current so you don’t have to worry about new attackers.

If any spam is caught, it is isolated and you can review if you wish (in case there is a false positive). Other than that, the spam is deleted in 15 days automatically. If a spam post does get through, check it off as spam and Akismet will remember it for next time.

To use Akismet, you will need a Wordpress.com API key. This is the same key that you should have if you have previously installed Wordpress Stats. Once you have logged on to your dashboard, activate the plugin, and you will be asked to enter your API key. Once done, Akismet is ready and will do its thing in the background.

If you have an active blog, and get lots of comments, this is a very valuable tool for managing your time more effectively, and you won’t have to work out what is spam and what isn’t.