Akismet-Friend Or Foe.

I’m in Akismet jail.

I’m not sure when it started but I find myself unable to comment on any blogs that have it installed. Or at least, they’re dropping straight into the spam folder.

I noticed this first a few weeks ago when I tried to leave a comment on one of David Risley’s posts at the Blog Marketing Academy. After submitting my comment the screen returned to the post again and didn’t show my comment or that it was in moderation. That’s a WordPress spam filter at work!

I got onto Akismet straight away and asked them to look into why this was happening. I got a response back a few days later advising that they had sorted the situation out and there shouldn’t be any more false positives.

OK great, or so I thought. No sooner did I try to comment on another blog with the AkismetWordPress plugin installed the same thing happened. My comment didn’t appear and the screen returned to the post again.

AKISMET IS FRUSTRATING!

I remember reading Ana Hoffman’s post about Akismet and feeling her frustration when I saw it a few months ago. I hoped it would never happen to me. Now it has and there appears to be little that Akismet will do about it.

They suggest that bloggers “train” the plugin to spot which is a spam comment and which isn’t. So am I a spammer then? I don’t think so but then maybe someone out there does and they’ve trained their WordPressanti spam option of choice to think of me that way.

Last week, to my surprise, Adrienne Smith wrote about people who were using her details when commenting on blogs. This has happened to Lisa Buben too and seems to be a new way that spammers are trying to get around the system. Could this have happened to me with Akismet?

I’m glad now that I moved over to the Disqus commenting system. It’s less likely to happen with any comments left on Disqus-enabled blogs as you the need to register your email address. I wonder where this will go though with the native WordPress comments system?

The thing about the AkismetWordPress plugin is that there are so many variables to why it may consider you to be a spammer. Depending on the settings on a blog, some of the comments may not even make it to the spam folder. Akismet’s spam filter can be set up to delete them straight away.

I recently moved to a new web host and also have a separate host for my email address. I thought that might help but to no avail! I’m still in jail.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO GET OUT OF AKISMET JAIL?

There’s a few things you can try:

1. Contact Akismet to ask them for help;
2. Ask the owner of the blog to rescue your comment from the spam folder;
3. Try installing the AkismetWordPress plugin and see it that makes any difference;
4. Change the email address you use when commenting if you can.

I’ve tried them all, apart from the last one, with varying success. I don’t want to change my email address to comment because it’s linked to my blog and what I use as my contact email address. It may come to it that I use a separate commenting email address for blogs with the Akismet plugin installed though.

THE APPROACH YOU COULD TAKE GOING FORWARD

What I’ve decided to do going forward is add each blog I discover that’s using the Akismet spam filter to a spreadsheet. After I’ve commented and know that the comment’s gone into spam, I record the date.

After the first comment has gone into spam, I email the blog owner and ask them to retrieve my comment if it’s acceptable to them. Most of the time, this means they will approve your comment and should help Akismet decide you’re not a spammer after all.

If I don’t get a response, I’ll check the post to see whether the blogger has approved my comment anyway. Assuming it has, I’ll continue to comment on the blog because the blog owner is monitoring their spam folder.

I’ll try this process three times. After the third time, if I don’t get a response or the comment doesn’t get fished out of the spam folder I flag that blog on my spreadsheet. Then, I don’t return unless it’s a blog I use for research or general reading.

DO YOU USE AKISMET ON YOUR BLOG?

If you do, have you ever considered the consequences of clicking the spam button? It can cause many genuine commenters like me to stay away from your blog.