Stop spam with Jetpack Akismet

Keep your website free of spam, improving the experience for everyone. (Except the spammers!)

Akismet uses state of the art algorithms and methods to block spam submissions. To date, Akismet has blocked more than 500 billion pieces of spam, averaging about 7.5 million per hour.

Activate Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam

Akismet is included in the following Jetpack plans:

• Jetpack Complete
• Jetpack Security
• Jetpack Akismet
• Legacy plans: Jetpack Personal, Jetpack Premium, Jetpack Professional

To start protecting your site from spam, please follow these steps;

1. Purchase a plan that includes Akismet.
2. Connect your site to Jetpack.
3. Confirm that Akismet is active on your site by going to Jetpack → Dashboard in WP Admin and scrolling to the Security section of the page.
4. Click on Moderate Comments to view comments in WP Admin.
5. If you don’t see the message about Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam monitoring comments, Upgrade or Activate Akismet.
6. Confirm Akismet is working.

Configure Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam

To adjust Akismet settings, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Jetpack → Anti-spam in WP Admin.
2. API Key: The API key should be pre-filled when you purchase your Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam plan. If your API ever changes, you could adjust it here.
3. Comments: Check this box to allow the number of approved comments to appear next to each comment author when viewing Comments in WP Admin.
4. Strictness: Choose how you want to manage your spam. You can ask Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam to automatically discard spam or put in the spam folder for you to review.
5. Privacy: To help comply with privacy laws like the GDPR, choose to display a privacy notice under your comment forms.

Set up Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam for contact forms

If you use Jetpack’s contact form (either the Form block, or the classic editor version), all of your contact form submissions are automatically checked for spam by Akismet. You can also manually mark comments as spam/not spam via the Feedback section of WP Admin.

For more information on using Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam with other form plugins, please see this support article from Akismet about how to use Akismet with your contact forms.

Turn off captchas

Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam filters comment and contact form submissions automatically, so you can remove any captchas that you are using.

Check usage

To see how Akismet is working, follow these steps:

1. Start at WP Admin.
2. Navigate to Jetpack → Anti-spam.
3. Review the stats cards showing the number of spammy comments and submissions blocked on your site by Akismet.

Anti-spam comes with 10,000 checks for spam per month (API calls), which should be more than enough for a small business. If you need more API calls, you can upgrade to one of Akismet’s Enterprise Plans.

Teach Akismet

Anything that Jetpack Akismet Anti-spam thinks is spam is automatically moved to your site’s spam section. On the off chance that some spam does get through, please mark it as spam which will help Jetpack Akismet recognize similar submissions as spam in the future.