Remember the days before spam?

- Akismet

I remember my very first spam email like it was yesterday.  I was looking at my good old hotmail inbox and wondering why I never got any emails when suddenly, as though an answer to my prayers, I received an email from someone I didn’t know.

Being both naive and confused, I clicked reply, explained that I believed the senders had the wrong address, and clicked send.  It probably took a few weeks before I received my next spam email, and the next one came a few days after that, and the next a few hours, and so on.

Things are very different today, as spammers learn new tricks and spam takes on new forms, the tools at our disposal also evolve to protect us against such threats.  One of these tools is a blog plugin that I’ve been using since day 1 on my site, and will be the subject of today’s Blog Tools Review.  The name of the plugin: Akismet.

Why spam a blog?

If I had to guess, I would say that most people’s first encounter with spam is related to emails.  What’s important to remember, however, is that spam is not limited to email.  In fact, as a blogger, chances are that email spam will quickly become the least of your worries, and, without proper protection on your blog, you’ll soon be filtering through a barrage of comments to remove spam!

Now you may be wondering why a spammer would even bother with your blog.  The answer, simply put, is links.

You see, links on the internet are very important when it comes to increasing visitor traffic and increasing a site’s rank in search engine results.  It also turns out that blogs, by the very nature of their comment functionality, are a very easy target for spammers.

So how can I protect my blog?

Click above to see Akismet stats

Well that’s where Akismet comes in.  Developed by the same people who developed Wordpress, Akismet is a self-learning spam detection service that filters over 14 million spam comments a day.

It offers an API that is not blog engine specific (meaning you can pretty much use it on any blog), and is free for personal use (they also offer different plans for corporate and commercial users).

Setup is very simple, especially in for Wordpress users, as all one needs to do is install the plugin and provide an API Key.  Such keys are provided by WordPress.com and Akismet.com, are free for personal users, and are used to limit abuse of the spam busting tool.

Once installed, the plugin will begin filtering any new comments posted on your site.  Any comments deemed to be spam will be put in a separate folder from which you can review and correct Akismet if it makes any mistakes (although you may not have to correct it often.  On my personal site, for example, Akismet has an accuracy rating of over 99%.)

Review Recap

Pros:

• Easy installation for WordPress users
• Very efficient (over 99% accuracy) and learns from mistakes
• Very flexible, can be used with a variety of online tools
• Free for personal use and reasonable prices for professional or corporate use

Get more information on Akismet’s web site or the WordPress Plugin Directory