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Blacklisted by Akismet - How to fix being banned and escape from Comment Hell
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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 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
#BEGIN highlights of this blog writing post:
Beginners blogging tips: Don’t be a sheep if you notice a problem with your site and how it interacts with anti-spam plugins.
Intermediate and/or Advanced blogging tips: This is how you’re making money - put everything else on hold until you solve your issues.
#END highlights of this blog writing post
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Subscribe to the comments for this post
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
[...] Blacklisted by Akismet - How to fix being banned and escape from Comment Hell [...]
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