What Is Akismet and How Can I Enable This Anti-Spam Solution?

Unsolicited comments can flood WordPress webpages and make the lives of their admins miserable. Because of the immense popularity of Wordpress, this CMS has been having issues with spam since the very beginning. That’s one of the reasons why the Akismet plug-in was integrated to the system – to fight spam and automatically block unsolicited comments on web pages.

One of the downsides of Akismet is the fact that if you use it for commercial purposes, you must pay for it. On the other hand, it was developed by the same developers who created WordPress and it has had impressive results so far. Since it has a very wide user base and a very advanced algorithm, this anti-spam plug-in can easily, and in real time, detect similar comments spreading through the internet and determine whether they are spam or not.

How do I install Akismet?

After the installation of WordPress, you should normally see Akismet in preinstalled plug-ins. If that’s the case, all you have to do is to activate it. If, for some reason, the plug-in isn’t installed automatically, you can do so with just a few clicks.

1. First of all, you need to install the plug-in. In the WordPress dashboard, go to “Plug-ins” > “Add new”.
2. Search for “Akismet”.
3. Click on the “Install” button and activate the plug-in.
4. Then search for the new item in the menu called “Akismet Anti-Spam”.
5. When you click on it, you will be invited to log in to your Akismet account.
6. When you click on it, you will be invited to sign up and set up your Akismet account.

You can still get Akismet for free

The price of the Akismet anti-spam plug-in has changed several times over the past couple of years and many users think the free version for personal use is no longer available. Indeed, the pricing of the plug-in doesn’t expressly say that it is free; instead, it invites the user to pay a voluntary contribution. What is the trick to activating Akismet for free?

1. Click on “Set up your Akismet account”.
2. On the Akismet webpage that shows up, click again on “Set up your Akismet account”.
3. On the following page, you will be invited to fill your user information. Fill in your e-mail address, name and password and click on “Create your account”.
4. The service will check whether your website is used for personal use or not. If it is, you will be redirected to the next step. If it isn’t, you will be redirected to the pricing. You can still get the free trial version of Akismet by clicking on a link placed in the text below the two items in the pricing.
5. When you click on the link, you will get to the final registration page where you need to confirm that your site isn’t used for commercial purposes, and you can then proceed to fill the last information.
6. The page with the form will again say that the price is 5 USD. However, you can move the slider and reduce the price to 0 USD.

Only non-commercial websites are allowed to use Akismet for free. Although you can easily bypass this rule during registration by simply confirming that your website is indeed a non-commercial website, you should do it only if it’s really true. If it’s not, we recommend using some of the other free anti-spam plug-ins or paying the 5 dollars a month that Akismet requires.