One of the first things you will want for any website that has comments enabled is anti-spam software. Akismet is one of the most popular wordpress plugins for handling spam comments. It works very well to filter out the obvious (and not so obvious) spam into your spam folder so you have less work to do. It’s quick and easy to install and you can choose a pricing plan that suits your website – from ‘pay what you want’ Personal plans to business/corporate plans.

 

1. Install the Akismet plugin

From your wordpress dashboard go to the ‘Add New’ option under ‘Plugins’

Add new plugin

 

Type Akismet into the search box and then install the software.

Install Akismet Plugin

 

 

2. Activate Akismet

You can do this from the same screen or go to the ‘Installed Plugins’ section to activate it from there.

Activate Akismet

 

3. Akismet Account Creation

You will now see a banner at the top of your plugins section asking you to activate your Akismet account.

 

Akismet Set Up Banner

 

This takes you to a page where you can either enter your Akismet activation key if you already have one (go to step 4), or use the ‘Get your API key’ button which will take you to a webpage where you can set up your Akismet account.

 

Akismet Activation Key

 

The ‘Activate Akismet’ button will bring you to the section where you choose the type of plan you need.

Akismet Activate Account

 

You can choose the appropriate plan here. If your blog/website is not a business then you can choose the Personal Plan

Akismet Subscription Plan

 

With the personal plan you move the slider to choose the amount you want to pay for the software, then the Continue button to receive your API key

Akismet Payment

 

 

4. Enter Akismet API key

You now enter the API key you have been provided with to complete the activation process

Akismet API Key

 

 

5. Akismet Spam Comment Management

 

You can see in your wordpress dashboard an overview of the comments that Akismet has marked as spam.

Akismet API Key

 

When it finds spam it will update the count

Akismet API Key

 

You can review the spam comments and choose what to do with them, or you can choose to ‘Empty Spam’ to delete all spam comments permanently

Akismet Spam Queue

 

Akismet will now monitor any new comments and automatically mark any comments it recognises as spam accordingly.

 

%d bloggers like this: