OMSH

Yes, I know it’s Thursday.
Yes, I know I’m late with this.
Yes, I know I need to fold clothes … oh wait, that doesn’t apply here.

If you can forgive all that, we can move on.

Now, first things first. How many of you have gotten jiggy with the self-hosted WordPress blog? Show of hands? Er…wait, I meant … Comments?! Okay, well let me say this – JUST DO IT. If I can force myself to join and then GO to a gym – even to the fart-inducing, fat-stretching Yoga – you can get your own web hosting and install your own blog, using our very easy steps over to ditch your blogging training wheels.

Today we’ll tackle the thing that drives all web-addicted individuals crazy – SPAM! Fortunately, WordPress knows that we hate spam, so along with every version comes the wonderful Akismet Plugin. What is Akismet, you say? Akismet is your friend. It is your blog’s firewall against rolex watches and penis enlargement endorsements posting to your comments. Niiiiiiiiiiiice.

Akismet is fun.
Akismet is nice.
Akismet won’t allow the same spam twice.

Bottom line, it checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. And then? IT REMEMBERS.

You can’t blog without it, so let’s get a move on.

Installing the Akismet Plugin

As I said before Akismet is already installed for you, but it’s up to you to activate it. So, let’s login to our WordPress admin area (http://www.domain.com/wp-admin).

Are you at your WordPress Dashboard? No worries – we’ll wait for you to get there. Once at the Dashboard, scroll along the tabs in the horizontal top navigation and click on “Plugins”. This will open up your Plugins Management Window. This is the window of champions – you’ll see it over and over as you personalize your WordPress blog to meet your needs. Plugins to the blogging geek in all of us is like rat poison to a meth addict – ya just can’t get enough.

See the Plugin called Akismet? Scroll to the far right where the text-link says “Activate” and click.

Now your Akismet plugin is activated, but alas … it is not yet working. See the red box at top? It says, “Akismet is not active. You must enter your WordPress.com API Key for it to work.”

Let’s get on over to WordPress.com, shall we? You might want to open a new tab or window so you don’t lose your place here. At WordPress.com you can do one of two things.

1. If you are moving your blog from WordPress.com, then just log into your current blog at WordPress.com and wait for us.
2. If you have never blogged at WordPress.com, you’ll need to follow a less than 5-minute process of creating an account with them.

If you’re signing up for a WordPress.com account for the first time – click on the BIG OL’ “Sign-Up Now” BUTTON at the top of the home page. You don’t even need to find your reading glasses to get this one right.

Fill out the few text boxes they offer you and then click the “Next” button at the bottom of the page. Oh, and since you’ve graduated to a self-hosted blog at this point…YOU HAVE, HAVEN’T YOU???… make sure to mark the radio button for JUST a username and not a blog. No need to have temptations hanging around taunting you with their ease. You don’t want ease! You want to unleash the creative spirit within you – and freedom, well it comes with a price. (I’m waving my freak flag – can you see it?)

If no one else has taken that username (and at WordPress.com a username cannot ever be deleted – which means if someone EVER had it – it will never be available again), your account will be immediately activated. You’ll get the following text:

Your account is now active!
You are now logged in as wordpresswednesdays.
An email with your username, password, Akismet API key and important links has been sent to your email address.

And so, your next step is to get on over to your email account. I know, I know … *der*

Welcome to my gmail account. As you can see, my username and password are available (I changed them, in case you think I’m really not on my toes), as well as my API key (again, changed). Your API Key will be a mixture of numbers and letters (12 of them, to be exact).

Now, for those of you who already have a WordPress.com account (maybe you’ve been blogging there or maybe you had to sign up for one to post to the forums), you simply follow the login link, http://wordpress.com/wp-login.php, and when you come to the login page, select “Edit Profile” from the “My Account” drop-down menu on the top left corner of your browser window.

See the API Key? That’s where yours will be too. Mine is under the smudge. Copy that baby and let’s head back over to your plugins page on your self-hosted WordPress blog.

Now, back on the Plugins page, click on the white text-link that says Akismet Configuration within the navy blue horizontal nav bar atop the Plugins Management Window.

Paste in your API key where it shows you within the textbox and click the button to “Update Options”. Remember, you could have grabbed this from both your WordPress.com Profile area, or if a new WordPress.com user, from the email you were sent when you registered the new account.

And now, your API Key is in place and your Akismet Spam Plugin is active AND functioning.

You can watch how much spam it catches by clicking on the text-link for “Comments” in the top horizontal navigation bar. See the white text link for “Akismet Spam”? It shows I have no spam at the moment.

Depending on your Comment settings, things can/could get hung up in spam that aren’t truly spam. That’s okay, because you can click to mark non-spam items as non-spam and Akismet will remember for the next go-around.

That Akismet is purty darn smart.

Between THAT and James McKay’s Comments Time-Out Plugin, you can cover all the bases for keeping your blog spam-free.

Like I said … plugins? JUST LIKE CRACK.