While you do not have web traffic or you have an unknown blog you don’t have to worry about being the target of unwanted comments or spam, but as the movement begins if you don’t have Akismet you can get comments like this:

In the image to the left we see a comment that consists of a high number of links to pages that I would never visit because the anchor text tells me the sites they point. And this is an example, I have other comments two or three times bigger. Other spam comments sell pharmaceuticals or personal loans. Never mind, the goal is to practice spam.

Here is where Akismet, a plugin that comes installed by default with WordPress and I consider essential in a blog. This plugin filters all the feedback we receive on our blog and separates those it thinks could be spam. Despite of having a couple of false positives I must admit that Akismet does his job very well.

To start using this plugin you only need one thing, you have to have an API Key for Akismet. This is a unique serial number for you, but do not worry because Akismet is free as long as it is for personal use, if you pretend to use it for other purposes you have available different types of commercial API Keys.

To activate Akismet just have to go to your control panel and follow the same steps you have done for other plugins. To get the API Key you have indications on the control panel that basically leads you to this address: http://wordpress.com/API-Keys/

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