Countering Spam

I’ve noticed that I’m getting some Spam comments — typically from .RU addresses, for some reason.   It’s really not that much, so I’ve been doing mass deletes on them.

I brought it up with my manager Robert, who mentioned Akismet.

After a quick check of the web-site, I took a look at the Plugins section within WordPress Dashboard.  I knew something looked familiar — now I remember soon after installing WordPress that there was an entry for a plugin called Akismet.  Looks like WordPress will be making it easy for me to Activate, as it had already been installed.

Within Dashboard it said, “Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template. See also: WP Stats plugin.”

I’m not sure what an API key means or how to modify templates, so I’ll start with activiating Akismet and see what happens.

OK…  Had to create a WordPress account in order to find my API key for Akismet.  I now have another blog called http://paulgarth.wordpress.com, but it’s unlikely I’ll be using it.  After creating the Blog I logged in and checked the profiles section to find the API key which was installed into the Akismet Plugin section and PRESTO!!!

Looks like Akismet has a bunch of servers worldwide that are cross-referencing the comments for Spam.  If any spam lurks through, then by flagging it you will update the servers.

About Paul

CERT Coordinator, Ham Radio Operator, GTD Fan; Photographer; Domino/Notes Administrator
This entry was posted in Blog Development. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.