Mephisto - stopping spam with Akismet

Everyone hates spam. One effective (and free) way of preventing spam comments being published is to use an Akismet API key.

Obtaining and installing an Akismet key is very simple with Mephisto.

You can find out more about the Akismet API key from their website. The version for private use is free and a commercial version is available if your blog earns more than $500 a month.

There is no native plugin for Mephisto but obtaining an Akismet key and installing it in Mephisto is very easy.

Firstly, you need to sign up for a Wordpress account where you will be emailed an API key. Go ahead and setup your account with Wordpress so you have a URI (such as http://myaccount.wordpress.com/). Further explanation and application forms can be found at the Wordpress API keys page.

Once setup, log into your Mephisto Admin Area and in the top right hand corner, click the 'Settings' link:

Once there, scroll down to the 'Spam prevention' form and enter your Akismet API key, the URI of your Wordpress account and whether you want to automatically approve and publish comments or not:

Don't forget to scroll down to 'Save and apply settings'.

Akismet will now filter out spam comments and, when you log into the Admin Area, will inform you of any comments that need your approval:

Clicking on the link will take you to the comment marked as spam and you can then approve or delete it:

Naturally, I deleted that comment.....

Genuine comments will not be held for approval (provided you have selected 'Approve and publish all comments automatically' as shown above) so you don't have to be concerned about genuine comments not being published straight away.

PickledOnion

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