Controlling blog spam
Wikipedia defines spam as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, which are universally undesired.” The term used to be associated with e-mail so that the old definition of spam used to be unsolicited bulk e-mail.
But blogs have become the targets of spammers too. In fact, we even get SMS spam these days. Earlier today, I received a text message from an unfamiliar number saying I won a vacation somewhere and I should call the supplied landlines. Duh, as though I joined a raffle to explain the “winning.”
But SMS spam is another story. Let’s try to deal with blog spam. Believe me, as your content grows, the spammers will find you. You don’t want them posting links to their Viagra online stores and porn sites, do you?
So, what do we do? I have installed a plugin called Akismet. How do you use it?
First, you log in to your blog administration panel (http://hedcen.com/yourusername/login.php).
On your dashboard, click the “plugins” tab highlighted by the red arrow in the photo above. Pay attention to that red arrow because you will see it in all the subsequent photos.
When you have entered the plugins page, activate the Akismet plugin by clicking on the link highlighted by the red arrow above. No, no… don’t click on the photo above. Go to your own plugins page and click on the “activate” link there.
Okay, with me, so far?
Okay, after clicking the “activate” link, a new tab called “Akismet configuration” will appear on the submenu, next to the Plugins tab (see the red arrow in the photo above). Click the “Akismet configuration” link.
To activate Akismet, you will need an API key. I can’t let you use mine because it is like a password to an account. You will have to get your own. Don’t worry, it’s free and it’s a painless process. There is a link on your Akismet configuration page which will lead you to where to can get your API key (upper red arrow in the photo above). Once you get your API key, enter it in the box on your Akismet configuration page (lower red arrow in the photo) and hit the “update options” button.
That’s it. Your Akismet spam filter is activated.