Akismet – the global anti spam plugin for wordpress
Filed in: Web, Weblog, WordPress, WordPress Plugins — October 28th, 2005
I have installed the Akismet plugin and disabled ALL of my other anti-spam plugins (bad behavior & Spam Karma 2) in WordPress. I will test Akismet for a few days. Here is a simple guide to Akismet.
What is Akismet?
Akismet is an anti comment spam and trackback spam service, which is founded by Matt Mullenweg of WordPress and his team members. Akismet web service checks every comment and trackback submitted to your blog against the Akismet’s global spam database and spam patterns (like Spam Karma 2). It filter all the spams and leave only good comments and trackback (you may recover filtered comment or trackback).
The best thing about Akismet is “install-and-forget”. You do not need to worry about it after installed, Akismet will keep your blog spam free.
How to get Akismet?
Currently, Akismet is for WordPress blog only. It is free for personal use but required a WordPress.com API key (read on to know how to get it).
Commecial Licenses
There are also a few Akismet commercial licenses. The Pro-blogger Akismet API license cost USD$5 per month. How do you know if you are categorized as a pro-blogger by Akismet?
…we’re saying if you’re making more than $500/mo from your blog we ask that you use a $5/mo pro-blogger Akismet API key.
So, I will have to pay if I decide to use Akismet on my blog…
Benefits of commercial licenses
- higher priority over free ones.
- Service is faster and more reliable.
- No traffic limits or throttles.
- Priority notification of service updates.
Sound good huh? 
Get Your WordPress.com API Key
As mentioned earlier, you are required to have a WordPress.com API key in order to activate Akismet plugin. Every WordPress.com member is given an API key.
Simply log in to your WordPress.com account, go to “Profile”. Under the “Your Profile” title, you will see a line that says “Your WordPress.com API key is: 12345678. Don’t share your API key, it’s…”. The 12345678 is your unique API key (of course, yours is different).
I do not have a WordPress.com account!
Don’t worry. Here is a free WordPress.com account invitation for you.
Install Akismet WordPress plugin
After getting your WordPress.com API key, download the Akismet wordpress plugin and follow the installation steps given. The installation is the same as installing other WordPress plugins — dump the plugin file into your Wordpress blog’s “plugin” directory and activate the plugin in your WordPress Plugin panel.
Remember that you need to enter the WordPress.com API key for Akismet to start working.
My two cents
Akismet works like Spam Karma, but instead collecting spam data from a single site, Akismet collects data globally from all blogs using Akismet. Theoretically, Akismet should work better than the locally installed Spam Karma.
However, Bad Behavior and SpamKarma 2 works great for me and they are free. Let’s see if the advantages in Akismet is good enough to convince me to use it permanently (and pay USD$5 per month).
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October 28th, 2005 at 9:18 pm
Akismet and all the spam plugins have one big fat problem : They are not evolutionary.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
Actually, Akismet does adapt in real-time.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
That’s because spam data is stored globally… hmmm thinking…
October 28th, 2005 at 11:44 pm
How is this any different from Spam Karma 2? Or perhaps I should ask, any “better”?
October 29th, 2005 at 12:57 am
the English guy’s question was also the one i was about to ask.
liew, you gotta update your review about akismet some days later and let’s see which is better!!!!!
October 29th, 2005 at 4:59 pm
entered my wordpress.com API and it says invalid key? Is it only to be used in wordpress.com sites?
October 30th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
ok emailed them and they fixed it almost immediately…great service…try it now!
October 31st, 2005 at 1:08 am
[...] via LiewCF.com [...]
January 8th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
wait, the wordpress.com api does not work on another server right?
http://www.tonycai.com
January 8th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
it works on other wordpress instalation. Other platform can use Akismet API too, check out Akismmet development for more information.
January 29th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
[...] Along with the release of WordPress 2.1, the Akismet 2.0 (read previous review) is also available now. Here are some of the new features of Akismet 2.0: [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
[...] API key is needed when you want to get free online services of Automattic, such as Akismet(blog antispam) and Automattic Stats(site [...]