Summary: Is Akismet marking your comments as SPAM by mistake? I'll show you what to do if Akismet catches your comments as spam, and how to ask Akismet Support to fix it
I've been keeping Dave Doolin busy by leaving blog comments on his blog, as all of my blog comments went to his SPAM queue. Dave was awesome enough to notify me about that, so I figured my comments were being marked as SPAM by Akismet, the default SPAM filter of WordPress which is also used in other sites and platforms.
I realized that it was indeed so, I was being blocked by Akismet, which effectively means my comments automatically went into the spam queue on all blogs and other sites protecting themselves from SPAM with Akismet. Not good.
I leave a lot of blog comments, but I know I'm not a spammer, even that I use some advanced blog commenting tricks, I always leave blog comments that carry some value.
Luckily, getting out of the Akismet trap was easy (I'll show you how to do that too).
How to check if Akismet marks your comment as SPAM (for whatever reason)
Are your blog comments not appearing when you leave them on blogs?
This can happen for two reasons
- Blog's comments are moderated, or
- your comment gets picked by the spam filter of that blog.
(different commenting systems handle comments differently, so you might not see anything right away, even that things are OK, or the comment is just being moderated, approved by the admin.)
If you see your comment right away, with a text "your comment is being moderated", that's normal. However, if your blog comments are not appearing at all, there's a chance you've been caught in the Akismet SPAM queue by mistake.
There is no way to absolutely make sure you are blocked by Akismet. Thus, the only way is to contact Akismet Support as instructed below and ask them to check it for you.
The Akismet test blog no longer exists, because it was against WordPress.com service policy.
I created a "Akismet test blog" on WordPress.com, because I didn't know it was against their policy. That blog is now deleted, and no one should create a blog in WordPress.com just to test Akismet ,or as they said it:
Akismet test blogs or facilities not run by WordPress.com staff are forbidden on our service. -WordPress.com Support
How to get off the Akismet "hot list"
Akismet thinks you are spammer.
No worries, these things happen.
Here's how to get your name cleared...
To get off the Akismet hot list, go to Akismet.com contact page and send a message - and choose purpose of the support message: I think Akismet is catching my comments by mistake.
- Go to http://akismet.com/contact/
- Choose Purpose: "I think Akismet is catching my comments by mistake"
- Give the URL of your blog and your email address so they can de-spam you.
- (put the email and URL in the "message", even if you add them to the contact details)
Naturally, the above works only if one is legit and not really a spammer. I think their logs show why one has been marked as SPAM by Akismet, so dumb-ass comment spammers are out of luck (which is just awesome).
It might take a while, days or even a week, depending on how much Akismet support has stuff to do, but eventually you'll get a mail if they managed to fix the issue, and if it all works out, your comments are no longer blocked and marked as spam by Akismet.
For me it took about a week to get the answer from the support (that they fixed the issue) and after that my blog comments were no longer blocked. High five to Akismet support for great work.
Summary
Even if you're using blog commenting the right way, your blog comments can be mistakenly marked as spam by Akismet.
If this happens, go to Akismet.com contact page and tell them you've been marked as spam by mistake. Tell them the email and URL you think are blocked by Akismet and they will help you out.
Change log:
- Jun 2, 2010: Added the screenshot of Akismet support contact form
- Jun 27, 2010: Created a simple Akismet test blog
- Aug 29, 2010: Deleted the test blog as it was against WordPress.com policy. Edited the post accordingly.
References:
Original post from Zemalf's Website optimization blog:
How to stop your blog comments from being blocked by Akismet
via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Zemalf/~3/AjAobnQ_IZg/ Best WordPress Hosting
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