Akismet

  • Posted on
  • in

This post was written for the students of the Columbia College Chicago class Blogging: Beyond the Basics in the Fall semester of 2014. It likely refers to specific software or settings that may quickly be out of date and may not apply to your situation, even in a future semester of the same class.

A couple of weeks ago I asked you to install Google Analytics and/or Jetpack, so you could start collecting analytic data. If you haven’t already done so, you should, and ask in class if you need help. In that post I breezily mentioned that getting a WordPress.com account, like you need forĀ Jetpack, would also let you enable Akismet, to fight comment spam. I was reminded in class that there’s a little trick to the Akismet setup that you should probably know.

When you go to Activate the Akismet plugin, you’ll be prompted to get an Akismet API key. The sign-in for that is your WordPress.com login, and then you’ll be prompted to choose between Personal, Business, or Enterprise plans: choose Personal. The Personal sign-up screen has fields for you to put in your credit card, but don’t! (I mean, unless you really want to support their efforts: but I’m not asking you to shell out any more for this class.) Instead, notice the slider in the upper right of the form that asks how much the service is worth to you. Slide the slider all the way to the left to $0. You’ll get a little frowny face, but the credit card fields go away and become a Continue button. Press that and you’ll get your Akismet API key, which you can then use to activate Akismet on your blog.