A few weeks ago we were having some trouble with comment spam here on the blog. Wordpress was catching about 15 spam comments per day and holding them in the comment moderation queue. But a handful more were squeaking through and showing up on the live site. I was starting to get annoyed with the task of moderating comments, so I installed Akismet.

Overall, a very easy process. Although the extra step of registering for a Wordpress.com account in order to get an Akismet product key was kind of a pain. But anyway, once obtaining the key, installation is as easy as uploading the files to the WP Plugin directory and activating the Akismet from the Plugins page of the WP Admin.

After Akismet was activated, I noticed something a little strange. Within minutes there were over 100 spam comments caught in the Akismet filter. How is it that pre-installation, we were getting around 20 spam comments per day, and now post-installation, Akismet caught over 100 comments by the time I reloaded the page? Either this is an incredible coincidence, or this is a "marketing" tactic used to make Akismet look more successful than it really is. And I'm not really sure how I feel about it.

On the one hand, this is fairly misleading. Unless I am confusing how the process works, it seems that Akismet inflates the number of comments that it blocks. Either the very act installing the app makes you a target of more spam (which they of course block) or the number of blocked spam is false.

But you could also say this this is somewhat clever. I mean, technically it isn't doing any harm. I have seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of spam that makes it to the live site, so I guess Akismet is working. But its effectiveness is also exaggerated, because the very reason that it needs to block 500 comments per week (I presume), is because it's installed.

Then again, maybe this is a huge coincidence. Maybe the installation of Akismet matched (to the minute) a 500% increase in comment spam. What do you think?