Even new and relative small blogs, such as this one, are hit with blog commenting spam. That’s one of the reasons I choose to moderate blog comments — the only other is to block comments that don’t meet the “living room” test. Fortunately, I’ve not received any of the latter since starting this blog back in late April, but the spam was becoming quite a nuisance.

As of the middle of last week, I was routinely receiving three to four spam comments for every legitimate one.

Enter Akismet. The plugin for this spam buster actually came built in to my WordPress blog. To put it to work on this site, I had to do three things:

• Sign up for a WordPress.com account to receive what’s called an “API key” via e-mail
• Activate the plugin through this blog’s WordPress menu
• Enter the API key

Voila. In five minutes, Akismet anti-spam plugin was up and running.

And if the first three days are any indication of its long-term efficacy — and I would venture to guess that they are — this plugin is an absolute “must-have” for all WordPress bloggers.

Since activating the plugin on Friday, Akismet has netted all 24 spam comments coming into the blog and has successfully let pass all legitimate comments. A 1.000 batting average in the first 72 hours!

Drop me a line — bryan AT bryper.com — if you’re a WordPress blogger and need a hand with activating Akismet on your site.

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