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If you have started a new blog or had one running for some time, you may have noticed you’re receiving comment spam. Before I put a stop to it, I was getting medical product and gambling offers which have absolutely no relevance to my web design blog.
Spammers notice new blogs via back links to wordpress.org and once you’re noticed they will always be able to spam you. You may soon end up with 100s of spam comments. This not only clutters up your blog but will also eat up your hosting space and bandwidth and therefore cost you more money to run your blog.
How to prevent blog comment spam
Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web serivce to see if they look like spam.
1. Akismet plug-in. Activate the Askimet plug-in that automatically comes with Word Press 2.02
2. You need a WordPress API key to use this service. To get this you need to sign up for a Word Press account
3. You will receive an email with login information necessary to create your new blog and the API key (no need to use the account after that). If you already have a WordPress.com account, your API key is listed on your profile page, which you can get to by clicking the “My Account” link in the top right when you’re logged in.
4. Copy the API numbers and insert it into your site when prompted after activating your Akismet plug-in.
5. You can review the spam Akismet catches under “Manage.” When the plugin catches something as spam it saves it in the database for 15 days in case you want to check it out manually and then automatically deletes it.
6. Remove the wordpress.org link. Because spammers notice new blogs via back links to wordpress.org you may want to remove this link and replace it with something else ie copyright information.
To do this, remove this line of code in the footer.php file:
<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?> is proudly powered by <a href=”http://wordpress.org/”>WordPress
and replace it with your own copyright notice…if you wish. (this reminds visitors that everything you write on your blog is copyright protected).
i.e.
? 2006 <a href=”http://www.drostdesigns.com/”>DrostDesigns.com All Rights Reserved
7. Now you don’t have to worry about receiving blog comment spam anymore. If you are worried about the Akismet plug-in deleting comments you may want to keep, the comments will remain in their database for 15 days before they are deleted automatically.
About the Author
Get Highly Effective Web Site Design, Marketing Tips and Tricks by visiting the author’s Web Design Discussion Blog
Herman Drost is a Professional Web Designer, SEO Specialist, Article Writer and Publisher of the Marketing Tips Newsletter.
raju
February 15, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Now you don’t have to worry about receiving blog comment spam anymore. If you are worried about the Akismet plug-in deleting comments you may want to keep, the comments will remain in their database for 15 days before they are deleted automatically