Is Akismet in WordPress Becoming Too Strict?
Akismet is an anti-spam plugin for WordPress blogs. It is most popular among WordPress users because during the setup of the blog, it is highly recommended that the Akismet plugin be activated above anything else. In fact, it is integrated as part of WordPress installation since version 2.0 and automatically activated in all WordPress.com-hosted blogs. To use Akismet, one has to obtain an API key from WordPress.com. If you’ve been using WordPress for a while, I’m sure you’re familiar with the workarounds of this plugin and how it works in filtering comment-spams and trackback-spams.
In determining spams, Akismet uses a filtering system which screens words/phrases commonly used by known/identified or suspected spammers such as “Viagra”, “sex toys”, “credit cards” and more. If Akismet finds these words or phrases in a comment, then it sends them to your Spam box for you to delete or de-spam the comments. The same thing holds true for trackbacks – when somebody links your blog post in theirs using your trackback URL.
However, Akismet is not 100% reliable although it’s a very, very good plugin. I have no complaints about it except that whenever I login to my WordPress Admin Panel, I usually check my spam box. These past few days I see that the number of spams captured by Akismet grows each day. Sounds fantastic, right? Maybe, but it’s not all that good. I can no longer see in my spam box the actual comments/trackbacks being declared as spam. Unlike before that I can still see the comments and trackbacks in their entirety, my spam box and akismet section reveals nothing. Maybe they are real spams, I don’t know. Or maybe, this is an incompatibility with Captcha!, another anti-spam plugin I’ve recently installed on this blog. There is no definitive answer yet but one thing is for sure, Akismet is working. However, some friends complained that they cannot leave comments on WordPress blogs. I suspected that this was an Akismet problem, that another blogger tagged their comment/s as spam. I suggested to one affected blogger to go to Akismet.com and after some email exchanges, my suspicion was finally verified and the blogger’s problem solved. If you happen to encounter the same dilemma, follow the suggestion I previously mentioned and hope for the best (if you’re really not a spammer).
In this regard, we can say that Akismet is not fool-proof. It is an invaluable tool for WordPress users but it can also be a way to make your blog life more difficult. Why? Because practically, anybody can tag you as a spammer by way of the comment/s you leave behind their blog/s. If your approach to commenting is in good faith and your comments are relevant, the likelihood of you being tagged as a spammer is low, but not impossible. Your comment is just a click away from being labeled as spam by any blog owner. So be cautious. If and when other bloggers determine that your intent is simply to leave a comment for indexing in Google or Yahoo, then you’re most likely to be a candidate spammer and getting back to normal may not be as easy as you think. It could days or weeks before solving this problem. If you’re not that lucky, maybe a change of IP Address could do the trick because when you have been labeled as a spammer, your present IP Address goes with the report you won’t be making use of that IP Address in so many ways thereafter.
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I don’t think it’s increasingly more strict than before. But, I suppose they have to up their mode a tiny wee bit in view of the scale of spammers around now.
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But I absolutely agree that it still is not fool proof. After all that is just automated.
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It’s not really fool proof. I don’t like Akismet in that it use the database resource to store the spam comments. I checked and so far 100% of the comments caught by my Akismet were real spam. And, imgazing you get over 100 or 1000 spams a day and you have to go through all of them just to pick a legit comment.
I’m going to use something else, really. Maybe that Captcha is better. But sometimes I have diffical reading captcha words. They made it too hard to recognize. For example now I’m seeing some 6 on the screen and i thought they are b. Some 4 and thought Y. Sigh…
Using math is good I think. Not only math stop spam comment but also stop kids from being hired to spam you (I assume those kids are not math literate).
Thanks for a great article.
Regards,
Binh
Edit: this is my 2nd time to get this message “No valid entry. Please try again:”
Binh’s last blog post..How to Know Your Web Page is Overweight
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@ Binh,
Thanks for taking time to comment. I hope my captcha didn’t make your life more difficult today. lol!
I’ll try to fix this by changing the font when i have time to maintain this blog. Pls feel free to come back here everytime you have time. Again, thanks!
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i guess you are right, lately akismet is recognising a lot of genuine comments as spam. in my case, i normally check my akismet bin all the time so i am still able to fliter non-spam comments. it doesnt bother me at all.
vienna’s last blog post..A Call for Novelty of Movies
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@ Vienna
Yes that is correct. It labels a lot of legit comments as spams these days. I hope the company can do something about this. At a certain level, it’s annoying.
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I’ve had no problems with Akismet yet, and so far, it has spammed two legit comments only and some trackback links. I don’t think it’s a serious problem on my part. And yes, please check or change the fonts in your Captcha coz i always have a hard time posting my comments here, because of that…ha ha!
Marlene’s last blog post..I Love This And I Hate That
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@ Marlene, you’re the 10th person to complain about my captcha. hahaha! ok, i will change the font later.
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I’ve had problems with Akismet flagging legitimate comments as spam as well. One of the funniest example of that is that Akismet seems to fla g the word “gold”, so a legit commenter on my site gets tagged as a spammer because his URL has the word gold in it.
Wan Kong Yew’s last blog post..Scientists Protest Over Pope’s Planned Speech
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@ Wan Kong Yew,
That’s exactly my point. Even friends of mine complain about this. However, maybe we can’t blame akismet for doing it’s job since it is purely automated and solely relies on keywords/phrases that it recognizes as spam in its database.
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Hi Jessie
I agree with Binh using math is good to prevent spam..In my case I prefer to decide that comment is spam from the way it’s publish.However akismet is good to me do filtering.
laling’s last blog post..prostitution in Indonesia
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hi laling,
i’ve tried math also. it’s good really but i’m more comfortable with captcha since it’s more difficult to crack (with every code having 5 characters). the only disadvantage is, many commentators find it difficult to read some characters especially when i was using my former font. with the present font, i think the code is more readable. at any rate, any anti-spam will do for as long as it does what it’s supposed to do – filter spams. it’s better to have something than none at all.
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[...] (authors and commentators) experienced with Akismet. This is an archived article titled “Is Akismet in WordPress Becoming Too Strict?” Some of your comments must have been caught by Akismet and either put in my akismet bin or [...]
What I notice with Akismet is that is identifies Filipino words as spam. So when some fellow Pinoy bloggesr comment it Tagalog, Akismet detects it as spam. The thing I don’t like most about it is that you cannot undo what you deleted, what if it happened by mistake?
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@ elaine,
that’s correct… i’m not sure what algorithm Akismet uses but there is a bias against Filipino words at times.
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