Using Akismet? Check Your Spam Box for Legitimate Comments
April 9th, 2010 by
It’s not fun to find a legitimate comment from 4 days ago in your spam box.
Akismet is one of the best anti-spam plugins for WordPress yet, because it checks every comment you get against a constantly growing database of blacklist spammers.
The problem is, that some of the IPs ans sites that get listed should not be marked as spam.
In the last 2 days, I had 4 cases of comments that were perfectly to the point, but were automatically moved to my spam list.
The good thing is, that in the 70 days this blog runs, I haven’t received a single comment I would consider as spam to my pending list (except for a few comments in languages I don’t understand, which I am sorry for not being able to approve).
The great thing about Akismet is that if you do find spam in your comments, marking it as spam sends an auto notification to Akismet databases (using your API key), with the spammer’s details, to check if they should be blacklisted.
I’m not sure if it works the other way around as well – that Akismet also sends an auto notification to their databases for every legit comment I mark as Not Spam. I hope it does.
Those of you who read this blog regularly, already know I am a plugin minimalist, but installing Akismet or any equivalent anti spam plugin is absolutely a must!
Even though Akismet is truly a smart plugin, I recommend to always check your spam box before automatically clicking on Empty Spam.
What plugins do you use to avoid spam? Did you ever get legitimate comments to your spam queue?
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Rakesh says:
Sonia
I have found a few over the last few months. I’m still very happy with Akismet overall.
Me too, John. Even though it sometimes marks comments that are not spam as spam, you can’t get any better than this with a different plugin.
Exactly right. I had to use Askimet along with Conditional Captcha plugin to get rid of spam comments and don’t miss any legitimate comments.
Thanks for the tip. I will try this plugin. However, Akismet warns about combining additional anti spam plugins with it, otherwise it may reduce Akismet’s effectiveness (take a look at http://akismet.com/faq/ ).
Having said that, this combination might work just fine.
Akismet is an absolute must for any WordPress user. I consider it part of the publishing tool and not an optional plugin. I use Disqus on my main blog, but still protect myself with Akismet. Great reminder Omer!
Thanks Keller. I thought about using Disqus or IntenseDebate at some point as well but wind up having only Akismet for now.
They have their issues, but I really do like Disqus. Of course, the standard WP commenting system works fine too.
Disqus user here as well. I find many bloggers don’t check the spam filter and legit comments get trashed.
Good tip.
Hopefully Akismet is notified when bloggers mark the false positives as Not Spam. That should improve the mechanism. thanks
I found some instances of comments moved to spam that were related to the post on which they commented. I brought them back to approve.
I guess if I’d done spamming and some blog authors reported spam for my comment, then Akismet is more likely to tag my future comments as Spam whether they are genuine this time.
My problem is with trackbacks. Almost all of the trackbacks Akismet moves to the spam and for most of them I’m not certain if they are genuine or spam. BlogEngage, FAQ PAL and MMO trackbacks, I approve and others when I check, they look like content aggregators. Should I approve them or leave them in spam to die.
Hi Suresh. You are right, if a blogger has done spamming once, they are blacklisted and then further comments go directly to spam.
Regarding trackbacks, I approve TBs from content aggregators because I believe they deserve the link back.
However, if the aggregator is not related to my niche, and just sends a trackback for a free link back, I will not approve it.
Is there a reason your a plug-in minimalist? The programmer at my work always says this…he says different plug-ins can conflict with each other causing issues.
Hi Thomas, too many front end plugins installed, can cause overhead and slow down a blog’s performance. Check out this article for more details: http://www.webtechwise.com/speed-up-wordpress-blog-by-having-less-plugins/
I’m always check spam box every morning because I know sometimes askimet failed to detect genuine comments. However askimet is still the best for my blog.
Thanks for sharing Fazreen
Great tip Omer, I have been using Akismet for a while and found it seems to be the best plugin for spam. It does the job well and its easy to retrieve any comments marked as spam that are not.
I still get A LOT of spam so it does help to be able to go through the spam box daily remove all the junk.
Thank you James, I tested some other plugins as well and realized Akismet does the best job of them all.
Yes I have to agree, so far I haven’t found that comes close to working as good as Akismet
funny you should write this. this always happens to me so i have to daily check if any legit comments land in spam
Me too, Ed. everyday
Great post… I just went and checked my Askimet spam prevention system and found eight legit comments. Thanks for pointing this out.
Its true Akismet marks as spam even for the ones which aren’t. I tried to check my spamming list and found 30 comments which weren’t spam in my spamming list. Reading this article helped me out to save my precious viewers.
Thanks for sharing and commenting, WebAndDesigners.
Omer, to be honest I always thought Askimet was a guessing plugin as most legite comments are marked spam and vice versa?
I always check my spam folder and pull out a few real comments.
Louis
Louis,
I noticed the same thing. It catches everything even good comments in spam or it lets the bad stuff through and the good stuff is marked as spam. So I check daily and have every comment that is new or does not use intense debate plugin will need approval before posting. Because of this I check the site 3 or for times daily for new and good comments that got marked as spam.
I know. This is one disadvantage of Akismet. The question is how is Akismet doing compared to the alternatives in relation to spam false positives.
I also agree with this Akismet algorithm is not good for my own opinion because lot of good or i say very nice comments that adds value to discussion also been caught from this spam filter. So we really need to manually check each blog comments in our blog.
Hello guys I agree that akismet is one the best spam filter plugin for wordpress the problem is that when somebody puts you into spam which you know that you’re comment is not a spam your comment will never go live anymore for those who use this plugn.
Regards,
Mark
Hi Mark, I think Akismet changed this method to reconsider white listing spammed comment authors, as long as they have not been spammed more than X times. I’m not sure of the exact algorithm though.
Do you have any details on that? I haven’t seen anything about it and I do know that it seems to only take maybe 3 times to be flagged a spammer but even 20 not-spam clicks doesn’t get you out.
There is a way to request Akismet unflag you (link in my posts about Akismet) but usually if you are an active commentator you will end up flagged again because spam is in the eye of the beholder.
Some bloggers flag any comment they don’t like as spam – and they will tell you that is what they do if you ask.
Wait until you’ve been blogging a long time. So many of my regular readers and commentators have been flagged as spammers that I have disabled Akismet in every blog and am working diligently to find the solution.
Not only does Akismet put them in spam – if you have one box checked in the Akismet configuration it automatically deletes any comment from someone who has been flagged as a spammer who comments in a post older than 30 days. Those comments you will never see or get the chance to approve!
See my posts about Akismet and our (many bloggers and plugin developers) search for a better solution that you can reach at the link I’ll put in the Website field.
Hi Gail,
I agree with you that it can be really frustrating to lose so many legitimate comments. As Tek3d stated above, you can always install conditional capatcha plugin to prevent legit comments from getting flaged.
Regarding the change in Akismet method, I have read it somewhere a few weeks ago but I can’t really recall the website. sorry
I Installed this plugin on my blog and it’s working like a charm. Good thing is now I don’t have to check my spam comments for real comments and number of spam in my spam queue is less by 95%.
Must have plugin wiith Akismet to fight spam.
Askimet is a must have plugin. I was invaded by spammers, but askimet has a 95% rate of succes. But he can mistake, it is fine to me. Maximum 1 legitimate comments on spam every month, so it is nothing comparing to hordes of spamms.
I agree with you on the efficiency in detecting spam comments, and if it’s not a hassle for you check the spam box for legit comments than it’s a great solution.
I have the same problem.
Sorry for my bad english, but i want to thank you for this plugin.
How to check in Akismet my status?
im using akishmet. so far so good for me. but cant compare to some, ive not tried other plug ins.
Hello Omer,
I was looking for a picture for my new blog post about spam comments. Google showed me the one you used here. I chose it for my post as well. I hope it’s ok. I made the picture clickable and it will bring people to this blog post here. I also put a note saying where I took the picture with again the link to here and WebTechWise as anchor text.
I’m happy to have found your post, since in enriches my information with tech details, so it will be a reference for me as well.
Have a great day!
Philippe
The nice thing is that Akismet is constantly learning from blogger’s actions. Checking the spambox, time to time, is mandatory for any anti-spam system.