Have you ever noticed two pre-installed plugins when installing WordPress site into your system? If you haven’t, then you can check into plugins right after installing WordPress. You will find Akismet plugin there. It is pre-installed but you need to activate it. You will have to take some extra steps to activate it. In this article, we will provide the detail about what is the Akismet plugin and why it’s very important for your WordPress site? We will also show you the process of setting up Akismet plugin into your site.

What is Akismet Plugin in WordPress?

Akismet is an advanced anti-spam filtering service. The name Akismet comes from Automattic and Kismet. Auttomatic is the company behind Akismet, and it was founded by the WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. It is one of the most popular tools for comments’ spam protection which is compatible across multiple platforms – WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Akismet catches blog comments and pingback spam using their own algorithms. This algorithm learns from its mistakes and from the actions taken by participating websites. For an instance, if a number of websites starts reporting similar-looking content as spam, then Akismet will automatically learn to identify such kind of content as SPAM in the future.

Why it’s very important for your WordPress site?

Is Akismet the only option to block spam comments off your website? Well, not really. There are great other options which are available for both free and premium that you can use to block spam comments off your site. Akismet is the right one for you, Why? Here are the reasons why you should use Akismet for your website:-

• First, Akismet was developed by Matt Mullenweg. WordPress is the most popular CMS globally and one of the most extraordinary software/platform created for website development. Comparing the credibility and power of WordPress, we can assume that Akismet holds itself much higher in the level of trust than any other anti-spam plugin.

• Till date, Akismet has over 5+million active downloads  and  it holds off 7.5 million spams per hour. This data is according to Akismet’s official website. It is one of the most highly recommended and most used plugins all over the web. Therefore, Akismet holds more data about spamming tactics and style than possibly any other spam protection plugin. Akismet is highly appreciated and recommended by WordPress themes developers because it has access to an enormous amount of data that can be used to judge whether a comment is a spam.

How to set up Akismet in WordPress?

You do not need to install Akismet anti-spam plugin of course as it is an inbuilt plugin that comes with WordPress. First, go to Dashboard>Plugins>Installed Plugins. There you will find “Akismet -Anti Spam” sitting there gracefully.

Now, Activate the plugin, and then click settings for further configuration. Now, you will be directed to the page as shown in the screenshot below.

Here you will need to enter your API key. To get your API key, go to the Akismet website or you can click on get your API key button which will redirect you to the Akismet website.

This will take you to the following page where you will have to choose a plan that will match your needs. Akismet plugin can be used  free of cost if you are using it for a personal blog or website. But if you want to use Akismet for professional sites or larger networks, then you can choose for the premium protection.

If you have chosen the plan, go further to registering your WordPress.com account information to create a WordPress account.

Created the account? You will get an email to the email address you have mentioned here. Activate your account using your email address, then you will be directed to the following page. If you had previously chosen the basic plan, choose the price of your choice, then drag your slider to $0. After that choose your payment details and confirm your subscription. Immediately after this, you will receive your API key. Remember, your API key is like your password, so keep it secure and secret. But if you ever lose it,it is not a great mistake, you can visit Akismet’s website, sign in to your account, after which your API key will be there in a hidden form.

After that Copy that API key and go to Plugins>Installed Plugins. Click on the “Settings” option and  then paste the API key in the configuration options.Done and  you are all set to use Akismet. Congratulations on having a fantastic spam blocker!

For download: You can click here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/

Conclusion

This is how you can install Akismet Plugin in WordPress in order to prevent your site from unwanted spams. I hope you guys now have some idea about the plugin and its importance. There are lots more. Keep tuning.

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Article By Rasil Shrestha

Web developer at Code Pixelz Media. He has completed his bachelor in Computer Engineering. Travelling, watching movies, hanging out with friends are some of his hobbies.

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