NOTE! I just found out my comments apparently are being blacklisted by Akismet once again. Joy! NOT!
I wrote the following last year and will be applying it to meself once again. I’ll keep you posted!
– Barbara Ling
Morning! You know, when growing up my mom was always fond of telling her friends,
"If anything is going to happen, it will ALWAYS happen to my daughter."
And now that I’m a mom myself, I have to just wonder….how on EARTH did she know this engraved-in-cement fact? And more importantly yet,
when will I pass this, ahem, joyful characteristic to my OWN children so I can actually live a vaguely (dare I even breathe the word?) normal life?
The recent events have shown me…’taint anytime soon!
Take 3 days ago. Now, as you’re probably aware, one of the ways to build up your readership is to intelligently comment on other posts at other blogs. Even better, if those sites have the WordPress Plugin Comment Luv, you can generate a deep backlink to your blog as well! This is one reason why my metablogging site AskOwlbert has over 1,500 backlinks generated within 2 months, and my backlinks are happily growing even as we speak (write? Communicate? Mind-meld? etc.etc.etc.).
So!
There I was, happily commenting my little heart out and uncovering really superlative blogs online, when I noticed something weirder than my sons begging me to forbid them computer usage and ice cream desserts.
My comments (insert ominous music here)…… weren’t showing up.
I didn’t even get any "your comments are awaiting moderation" notices.
It was bizarre; my comments were being treated like they had embraced the plague. One site could be chalked up to "these things happen"….but these things were happening at every site! So of course, I donned on my Sherlock Holmes hat and dove into uncovering the answer.
The answer…she wasn’t pretty. I discovered that the wondrously useful plugin Akismet was gently (with the force of a tornado) depositing my comments into the spam queue.
Joy…this was not.
So! Figuring that these things happen (to me again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and ….), I looked for the solution and found:
The solution was to visit the Akismet Contact Page and submit a support/feature request.
I dropped them a messsage that introduced me and my site (and made certain to put spaces in my domain name in case THAT got put into the spam queue) and described the problem I was encountering.
The result?
Yesterday I received email from Mark and the problem was fixed.
Yay! My commenting now works! This really does highlight the following proactive issues. Here they are, step by step:
Step 1.) ALWAYS notice when weird things happen.
It might be a glitch…then again, it might not.
Step 2.) Be open to debugging.
If you’re experiencing problems with commenting, it could be that the various spam plugins on the Internet are laughing hysterically at your domain. Visit your OWN blog, submit a comment, and then see where it goes. If it gets spammized, deactive your spam plugins, one by one, and test it again until your comment goes live.
The last plugin you deactived is the one which is causing the opportunity for a bazillion grey hairs.
Step 3.) Search online for the plugin name and the keyword "blacklisted", "banned" and/or "HELP!"
I used the following searches:
It brought me to the blog postings I had mentioned above.
Step 4.) Contact the anti-spam plugin author.
Chances are, the problems you’re encountering really are just a glitch – alert the plugin author to your dilemma and ask for help. It’s that easy. Remember, your domain/website is how you make money online. Be proactive when things go wrong – you’re the only one who can set in motion the ability to fix it. You just simply have to give yourself permission to contact whomever is required; chances are, they’ll be happy to repair it.
Enjoy!
Barbara
"Hey there, thanks so much for stopping by! If you
enjoyed this article, please do feel free to tell your
friends about it or use those nifty neato social icons
above to spread the word. I love sharing great info,
and would really appreciate it...thanks!"
-- Barbara Ling
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{ 33 comments… read them below or add one }
I have been blacklisted on Twitter by some people because of my my high ratio.. problem with that, is I like blogging and following bloggers haha.. I don’t spam.. I need to figure a way to not become known as a spammer in twitterland…
Good info about Akismet!
Scott’s last blog post..Taking Time to Find Your Voice
Who is the person who deems you to be spam and what right do they have to do this???
BY making passionate comments on various blogs – comments that were relative to the post at hand, I ticked someone off and they marked me as spam to Askinet? WTF??? How is that fair? Askinet should approach the person they going to block before doing so!!!
Hi WTH,
It’s frustrating but in all honesty, I can’t blame Akismet at all. After all, they have millions of blogs using their plugin – they have to handle a bazillion cases via straight software algorithms (I think).
They resolved my problem after I contacted them. I don’t think they can proactive contact the millions of people who use their plugin.
I’m *extremely* grateful Akismet exists – so far, they’ve blocked about 2K odd spam comments on my blog.
Have you *really* been flagged as spam by Akismet…or only by that one blogger? You can check by posting a comment at your own blog and then seeing if it gets sent to the spam queue.
Lots of empathy,
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
thanks for your advice.
I’m afraid Akismet is wrongly blocking my blog comments.
So idon’t know if my comments will show up at your blog.
I will do a test comment on my own blog now as you suggested.
Keep the good work up.
Regards,
Michael
Michael’s last blog post..How To Put The Secret To Work For You
That doesn’t always work though. If you publically disagree with Matt, you run the risk of being blacklisted by Akismet.
Dr. Mike Wendell’s last blog post..Why does Twitter not like me?
I wrote to akismet and unfortunately there are no positive answers from them. akismet is kinda scary, i swear i’ll stick to blogspot, typepad etc and leave wordpress and it’s plugins like akismet, commetluv alone.
Ryan’s last blog post..Do you want to become an actual forex trader?
I find the free plugins for wordpress offsets other spam problems myself.
Barbara
Hey, Barbara. Thanks for this post. Was one of the first things to pop up on Google when searching “akismet is blocking my comments?”
Recently switched my domain name (david boni dot net) which I think is the problem (thus why I am not going to fill out the “website” field in the comment form). Just contacted Akisment. Hope it works and thanks again!
Hope it worked out well!
Thanks for this post, I realized I was getting banned to and had no idea why. I think its because I hired a “seo” company to do some work for my website, and apparently they did a terrible job. Hopefully I can get “unblocked” and have everything go back to normal soon.
Contact Akismet directly – they should be able to help. Best of luck!
I’ve been having bad issues in the past with Akismet. Personally I hate when my perfectly valid comments get spammed. So I consider it high priority that my readers don’t get in such situation ever. I tied contacting akismet as you said but it didn’t really help. I don’t use Akismet anymore, I use Defensio now and its much better than it. Also, it is better learner than Akismet and really shows the effects of my actions and does not block blindly like Akismet!
Akismet finally did unban me – yay! Sorry you’ve had bad experiences too in the past.
I also think that my URL is flagged as every comment I make is landing on the SPAM folder. The characteristic I notice is that whenever I hit the submit button, I just face a blank screen.
I am posting this comment leaving the URL field blank, just to test whether my comments passes through or not.
Please de-SPAM it, if it lands in your SPAM folder.
Thanks
Will do!
Great post…. I was already wondering if there was any problem with my domain, and with your very simple solution I could check if it was banned or not. Thanks!
Glad to be of service!
Hi Barbara,
I contacted them but got no answer. I will wait ..
I have also been banned onone of my websites url
And here is a little tool that will tell you if your are banned by Akismet:
http://www.thinkingphp.org/akismet/akismet_test/index
If the result is TRUE, then congratulations! You are banned!
Wow, I never knew about that tool – thank for sharing!
Seconded. Thanks for the link.
Just for reference, the script kicks out a few coding errors along the top. Look right above the form after it processes for “Result:True” or “Result:False” in very small print for the feedback.
drmike recently posted..Boryas Journey
THanks for the info!
Akismet only banned my email and no wonder why that happened. I always post relevant comments some of them have more than 2 paragraphs about 200 words. I really add something of value to my fellow bloggers. So I am using the same url but another email. I asked them to remove this banning. I hope they answer to my request. It is just my email but I have commented on many blogs with it and I am missing all those replies I like to do.
Daniel recently posted..Support socks reviews
Hope it gets fixed soon, Daniel!
Oh, wow! So Akismet can actually ban e-mails? I had no idea they could.
Will try using different e-mail addresses from now on.
Nabil recently posted..Dölj håravfall med Toppik
Glad to have helped!
I also like commenting on blogs a lot. But, I always add on-topic and pretty worked out comments. Not the usual “oh, that’s cool, bye”. Though, it seems I got banned too by some fellow bloggers who marked my comments as spam just because I’ve written in my homepage. I wonder why do they keep that website field if they don’t want people to show their homepage address.
That’s odd, I always encourage folks to leave their link on my blog.
I like to comment on WP blog , but I think Akismet banned me..very sad. And I am not a spammer.
Work on getting the ban removed…
Golden rules for not getting banned is:
1. Don’t leave links in your comments unless its extremely necessary (your link is always there in front of your name anyways)
2. Don’t write comments which are invaluable to the users i.e. (Nice post thanks)
3. Don’t write comments which are talking in no relation to the article (A health related article should not have comment about some marketing site etc.)
Wrote more tips here http://www.hurricanesoftwares.com/are-you-banned-by-akismet-for-spaming/
Ashish recently posted..Keyword Hierarchy: Sometimes Second Really Is Best
Thanks for stopping by! Actually, the phrase would be, *write* comments that are invaluable( ie, beyond value). I can see where the confusion would come!
Thanks I am having some trouble posting to some sites I visit often. I contacted akismet and hopefully they will fix this problem.
Craig recently posted..Manilla – Free Online Account & Bill Organizer
Good luck!
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