Spam Comments are irritating. Recently I started getting them.
But fortunately today (when I am writing this), I fixed it.
In this article, I am going to share with you about how I discovered spam comments on my website, about the Akismet Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin that can be used to fight with such spam comments and the process of installing & using that plugin for free.
The Problem that I faced – A lot of SPAM Comments
I open my WordPress dashboard and find 500+ comments. At times, even 1000+ comments. I wondered how am I getting so many comments.
When I started reviewing them, I understood the fact that they are SPAM.
How do one usually review comments?
- Go to the comments section
- See the pending comments
- Read them and approve them if they are relevant
A human can check several such comments but it is pretty inconvenient and tedious to manually figure out the SPAM comments.
I know it as I tried it.
Yes, I am not ashamed of confessing the fact that I used to manually review the comments and mark them as SPAM.
I used to look at the IP address and then block the addresses from where I was getting multiple comments back to back. But, humans get tired and hence I started investigating it further.
The problem was I was not able to understand why are the bots commenting only on one particular blog post.
I messaged SEO Expert Roshan Samuel Ambler regarding this issue. He said that maybe my that particular blog post is ranking for some keywords which spam-bots are targeting. And I must stop this using Akismet.
Akismet! I have heard about it before but never tried it. It is an Anti-Spam Plugin.
Finally, I tried it & it worked well. Now, I can identify the SPAM comments automatically with just a single click.
What is Akismet Plugin?
Akismet is a spam-filtering WordPress Plugin that identifies and filters out SPAM comments. It does it using it’s algorithm which learns about it by the websites using it.
When multiple websites using Akismet report comments from a particular source as SPAM, the algorithm learns it and identifies those comments as SPAM in the future.
It is very important to remove spam comments from your website because even comments are considered as a part of your content (User-generated content). With low-quality comments, the quality of the site is impacted. Also, there can be links to pornographic or illegal content in such comments. This deteriorates the website’s quality further.
You won’t like it when someone visits your website and click on such links and then hates you for having such links on your website.
It not only spoils the user experience but also impacts the SEO to a great extent. Hence, an anti-spam plugin acts as a savior in such situations.
How to stop Spam Comments using Akismet? (FOR FREE)
Downloading the Akismet Plugin
- Open your WordPress Dashboard.
- Go to Plugins and click on Add New.
- Search for Akismet Anti-Spam & click on Install Now.
- Then click on Activate to activate the plugin.
Setting up Akismet Account
After activating the plugin, you need to set up the Akismet Account.
For setting up the Akismet Account, Go to Settings -> Akismet Anti-Spam
Click on Set up your Akismet Account
You will be redirected to Akismet’s website.
Click on Set up your Akismet Account here too.
You will be redirected to a page where various plans will be displayed. The 3 plans as of now are Personal, Plus and Enterprise.
The Personal plan is free. Proceed with it.
The next page will ask for details like email, name and site URL. Also, it will ask you the question “What is Akismet worth to you?”
In order to access this anti-spam plugin for free, drag the pointer to $0 & proceed.
Akismet API Key in WordPress
After this, an API key would be sent to your email.
Come to the plugin in WordPress dashboard & enter that API key here.
Then click on Connect with API key.
That’s it. The plugin is now ready for use.
Using Akismet to identify spam comments
Go to the comments and you will now find there a button Check for Spam. All you need to do is click on it. If it is unclickable then there is no spam at this moment.
Also, when you visit the plugin, you can get stats of the spam comments.
Conclusion
I hope this article helped you. It is always advisable to maintain the quality of the blog & comments also play a key role in it.
WordPress Plugin like Akismet can help you effectively in stopping such spam comments.
If you have any content idea or queries, feel free to connect with me – linkedin.com/in/jainishshahdigital/