The Akismet plugin helps to keep spammers out of your comments. Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” The Akismet plugin is pretty simple to install. You don’t need to download and install theAskimet plugin the way we did with our previous plugin installations because it came with the WordPress program. You do need to activate it and you will also need to get a WordPress.com API key to use it. I will step you through the process. We are making good progress on our blog. As I have told you from the beginning, starting a blog from scratch would be a lot of work, but I hope you are having fun along the way. Because of the progress we are a adding an new category starting with this post called Moving Along. I think that’s a nice hopeful category. Congratulations for making it this far.

Activate the Akismet Plugin

To activate the plugin go to the WordPress Dasboard and press Plugins. Find the Akismet plugin and then press Activate. The plugin will be now be highlighted.

Get the WordPress.com Akismet API Key

Go back to the WordPress Dasboard press Plugins and on the toolbar below you will see Akismet Configuration. Press that and you will get the following screen.

If you already have a WordPress.com API key you need to enter it. If you don’t have one you can get one at WordPress.com API key. When you press that link you will go to this screen:

Not much on the page when I went there. Just navigate on the page to the sign up button and press it.

Sign up for an account, (it’s free) but just ask for a user name. There is a difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org. Wordpress.com gives people free blogs but there are some restrictions about what you can do. If you are using wordpress outside of the wordpress.com environment then you are considered to be self-hosting and part of the wordpress.org world. Once you have entered your information press Next.

You will receive you email with your account information and your API key. Once you get your email go back to the Wordpress Dashboard and go to Plugins and Askimet Configuration and enter in your API key. You should see the following screen:

You are getting really good at this How to Create a Blog process. One more thing. Whenever you sign up for anything make good notes about things like your user name, passwords, account numbers, etc. It is very likely that you will need the information again. Start a folder and keep all the information in one place. Do it now!