I have decided to kill the Spam Kara 2 software that was protecting this blog because it deleted a string of legit comments. I want to thank the commenter for bringing this to my attention.
The new spam software protecting the blog from comment spam is Akismet. This Plugin comes preinstalled with WordPress and I highly recommend it. Akismet is a collaborative effort. When a new comment, trackback, or pingback comes to your blog it is submitted to the Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down. There is no blacklist because part of the idea of Akismet is that you are always protected up-to-the-second from the latest dirty tricks of spammers. So far the software has performed flawlessly.
To turn on Akismet just go into the Plugins section of your WordPress control panel and activate it. The software does require an API key however. You can get a free key by signing up for a WordPress account.
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Akismet is the only spam software I’ve ever tried, it’s caught 1.537 real spam comments since I installed it on my Photoshop tutorial site.
Good choice John
I’ve never had any issue with SK2 and it has caught nearly 5,000 spams. I don’t have an overly active comment section, though, so maybe it would flag valid posts if I had more.
Mike
It erased my posts in the life insurance thread. I’m glad to hear that my comment changed something.
That sounds like a great system.
Akismet generated many of false-positive (non-spam comment flagged as spam) in the past and SK2 suited just fine for me. Don’t be too aggressive with it though
You are right about the false-positives from Akimet. I am getting quite a few of them.
I have always used Akismet – they do a great job hands down