If you’re like me, logging into WP’s admin panel and finding hundreds of comments in the moderation queue can be frustrating. I used to just delete these over and over again, but then I installed Akismet. If you have a problem with spam, you definitely need this plugin; it’s great.
- Now, you should already see the Akismet plugin on your plugins page in the admin area because WordPress now comes bundled with it. If you don’t see it, download the latest version here and upload the file into your wp-content/plugins directory.
- Don’t forget to activate it on your plugins page in the WordPress admin panel.
- Now, you need an API key to actually use this plugin, so you need to head on over to wordpress.com and sign up for a blog account. Now, you do not need to actually make a blog here, just choose “Sign up for just a username” on the signup page. It should lead you here, depending on your language/country. Signing up will assign you an API key without making a blog account.
- After you completed signing up, check your inbox for the activation email. Click the link within the email and in a few moments you will be sent another email. This second email will contain your API key, and you just copy and paste this key into the box on your Akismet plugin page.
Voila! Sit back and relax, because you won’t need to deal with spam anymore! If you’d like to display the total spam comments caught by Akismet on your blog, use this cool plugin or just paste this snippet into your sidebar where you want the number to appear:
<?php echo number_format(get_option('akismet_spam_count')); ?>
