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Akismet Comment Spam Blocker Trouble
May 8, 2008
Hey guys, I want to talk to you about Akismet the comment spam plug-in that most WordPress blogs use. Akismet is a great comment spam filter and it’s known for doing it’s job and doing it well. It comes in two options, the personal version which is completely free, and the second version for commercial usage for anyone making upwards of $500 a month from their blog. However a lot of people have gone through a terrible experience with Akismet. Why is this?
People are complaining that the blogs they love to comment on so much, aren’t letting they’re comments show up. Whats going on? It seems that a lot of readers comments seem to be getting flagged as spam by Akismet. Nobody really knows the secret to how Akismet actually works, and how or what makes it flag a comment spam.
This has been happening for a while now and even though they say they flag spam correctly 99.9% of the time, the increasing number of complaints seems to make that percentage something of the past. I went through this problem myself. As I commented on certain blogs I noticed my comment didn’t appear, not even “waiting to be moderated.” I figure okay I guess they changed something, so I come back 2 days later and my comments are still nowhere to be seen. Other people’s comments showed up, where were my comments?
I then contacted the webmasters of these blogs to ask what was going on with my comments. They explained to me for some reason my comments were being flagged as spam by Akismet. They advised me that I should go to Akismet’s website and send them a message explaining my problem through their contact page. A few days later the frustration was over as I received an email telling me the problem was fixed and it was.
The flaw I see Akismet has is that it learns from what data you send to it. Every time you approve or mark a comment “spam”, data is sent back to Akismet’s database and it learns from this. Hence if one blogger on a blog marks you as spam then Akismet’s database will mark you as spam on every other blog that uses Akismet. This can lead to malicious behavior by bloggers, allowing them to purposely mark you as spam.
If Akismet is blocking your comments, then go to their website - Akismet.com and send them a message through their contact page. Explain to them that you are being wrongfully accused of spamming (assuming that you are) and they should give you an e-mail back, letting you know it’s been fixed and/or what it could have been you did to get you flagged in the first place.
Hey Luis, I had this same thing happen to me yesterday. There was one spam comment in my akismet and it was a very thoughtful comment, the kind I don’t like losing. Your comments made it through fine
Yes this unfortunately happens to many innocent people who leave comments on blogs, it is a problem Akismet needs to start fixing. I’m glad the problem was taken care of for me, and hope more people read this post so they can find out how they can fix the problem if it happens to them as well.