akismetI have finally installed Akismet to help prevent comment spam on all my blogs, including this one and the Search Engine Roundtable (but other ones as well).

Akismet was originally built for WordPress blogs, but there is an easy way to integrate it with MovableType blogs. So we did that yesterday.

After you install Akismet on the server, you then need to register with WordPress to get an API key. After that, you plug the API key into your plugin area on MT and your set.

Akismet then tells MT if the comment is spam or not. If it is marked as spam, it will give it a score (-1 to -10, you define that). If it is not spam, it will give that a score (+1 to +10, you define that). I set it at + or - 1 right now and may adjust that as I see how it works.

Like I said, Akismet works with MovableType. So if you set preferences, they will work in conjunction. For example a comment was junked because of several reasons including SpamLookup Link Filter noticed the number of links exceed junk limit (4) and assigned it a -1.0. Plus Akismet says it was spam and gave it a -1.0. So the total score was -2.0 and it was junked.

Supposedly, if spam slips through and you mark that comment or trackback as junk or "unjunk", it will send the information to Akismet so it will learn. I.e. a "collaborative effort" which rocks.

Last night only two spam comments slipped through, which is nothing compared to the norm. I paid the fee for the commercial use on a month to month basis.

If all goes well, you won't hear me complaining about comment spam again.