{"id":43891,"date":"2024-04-08T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dhblog.dream.press\/blog\/?p=43891"},"modified":"2025-05-21T17:51:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T00:51:55","slug":"akismet-block-spam-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-dev.dreamhost.com\/blog\/akismet-block-spam-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"Sayonara, Spam: Why WordPress Users Love Akismet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s a short story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have an idea for a great website. You buy a domain<\/a>, grab some bulletproof hosting<\/a>, and spend hours creating a truly delightful design<\/a>. Visitors start arriving, and maybe you make some sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, one day, you begin seeing comments that have nothing to do with your content. They link to weight loss pills or some other scam website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More and more begin popping up. Eventually, you’re trying to swat them away like wasps at a picnic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sound familiar? This horror show is the exact problem the Akismet anti-spam plugin<\/a> is designed to fix. In this complete guide, we will show you why it’s so valuable, and how to set up protection for your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Akismet Exactly?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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\n\t\n\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/svg>\n\t<\/a>\n

Akismet<\/h3>\n

Akismet is a premium WordPress plugin (extension) that offers spam protection. With over five million active installations, it is one of the most popular tools for spam prevention on WordPress websites.<\/p>\n \n Read More <\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akismet is a spam protection service designed primarily for websites that accept user comments or submissions via a contact form. It was created by Automattic, the same company behind WordPress.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Akismet WordPress plugin<\/a> lets you set up automatic spam detection on your self-hosted website. It’s free to download and pretty easy to set up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once installed, the plugin can help you find and delete unwanted comments with minimal effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akismet is also part of the popular Jetpack suite of WordPress plugins, which is another Automattic product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akismet Pricing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Akismet spam protection is offered on a “pay what you can” license for personal use, such as your personal blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For commercial projects, you can protect smaller websites for $9.95 per month (billed annually) or cover unlimited medium-sized commercial sites for $49.95 per month. For the online giants, Akismet offers custom enterprise packages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Akismet is also available for $9.95 per month for the first year (then $19.95) as part of the Jetpack Security bundle. You actually get more for your money with this than with the commercial plans, because of the additional features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top tip: our DreamPress PLUS and PRO plans<\/a> come with the full Jetpack suite pre-installed, including Akismet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Akismet Spam Detection Works<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Any site owner can distinguish between a genuine comment and a spam entry. But how does an app tell the difference?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""Akismet:<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the case of Akismet, there are five parts to the puzzle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Data Collection<\/strong>: When a user adds a comment to your website, Akismet notes the author’s email address and IP address<\/a>, along with any URLs included in the comment and other relevant information.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Content Analysis<\/strong>: Akismet uses machine learning<\/a> algorithms to spot the common features of spam comments, like links to unpopular websites and spammy language.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Database Comparison<\/strong>: Over time, Akismet has recorded thousands of IP addresses and misleading links that are associated with spam submissions. Every new comment is checked against this database.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Spam Scoring<\/strong>: Based on these tests, each comment or submission gets a spam score. Anything over a certain threshold goes straight to the spam folder. The comment is also blocked or moved into your moderation queue.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Continuous Learning<\/strong>: Whenever a site owner marks a flagged comment as not spam<\/strong>, Akismet records the false positive. This data is constantly fed back into the system to improve accuracy.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    It’s an impressive system, isn\u2019t it? Plus, unlike other anti-spam systems, Akismet does not require anyone to solve complicated captchas. It\u2019s saved the sanity of many site owners over the years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Why You Need Spam Filters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Spam messages might not seem like a big deal, particularly if your site is quite new. It’s no worse than deleting a couple of emails every day, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Actually, it’s much <\/em>worse than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    According to Akismet<\/a>, the average user saves 20 hours per month<\/strong> by automating spam protection. While this figure is probably bumped up by giant businesses, dealing with spam is still a massive time waster for smaller sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And spam isn’t just an annoyance. Automated spam bots can bombard your site with so much trash that it stops working. Akismet says that businesses lose 3.6% of annual revenue<\/strong> through such attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    We know what you’re thinking: \u201cThey would say that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Whether you believe the exact figures or not, spam is not a problem to be taken lightly. Over the years, Akismet has removed over 500 billion pieces of spam from 100 million websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    It’s hard to argue with the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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