When I jumped to WordPress from Movable Type, my first must-have plugin was Akismet. Those who use WordPress must be familiar with this plugin. Besides Akismet, there are many plugins and methods available like Spam Karma, Defensio, Bad Behavior, and many more.
Then, I found another plugin besides Akismet. It’s WP-SpamFree (official site) And, it seems that it works much better than Akismet. When using Akismet, the spam comments (and trackbacks) are moderated, so they are there in our dashboard. WP-SpamFree has a different methods. It blocks the spammers before sending any information through comment post form (and trackback). And, I have to say that I almost have a zero spams in my dashboard. No more “x comments in moderation”.
Well, I still found some moderated comments, but it’s because they are not blocked by WP-SpamFree, but by Akismet. WP-SpamFree works fine with Akismet. So, we can have them both installed without problem.
I think, this is the scenario when these two plugins work together:
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If WP-SpamFree thinks that a comment is not a spam — because it passes the spam checking mechanism, Akismet will do the next action.
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If Akismet founds that a comment/trackback is in spam database, it will be marked as spam. If not, the comment/trackback will be displayed directly (or not, depending on WordPress settings).
So far, this plugin looks promising. And, I do not have too many comments in moderation. Great.
