Little Break, Great Reads and Akismet: When Friend Turns Foe

I am taking a little break from blogging this week as it has been crazy few weeks and my mind can use some down time. I also wanted to leave you a some articles on life improvement to make our life little more enjoyable.

10 ways to help during bad economy

Creative ways to use up left over Halloween candies

How to have yourself Stress Free Thanksgiving

Akismet: When Friend turns Foe

Since I started blogging on WordPress, from March 2010, I learned a lot about plugins and blogging. One of the plugins I love, is Akismet. If you are blogging for sometimes then you know how it is helpful to keep spams away from your blog. I also wrote about it in my blog post 10 plugins to boost your blogging , a guest post at Virgin Blogger Notes.

I loved Akismet as it is free plugin that does a great job of keeping spam away from a blog, may be too great job. Lately, my comments to other blogs have been going in to SPAM folders or getting deleted by Akismet right away. I did not notice it at first and slowly it became evident that most blogs running akismet were blocking me as a spammer. Let me repeat: “I am not a spammer and never have been and do not plan to be one“. Akismet occasionally gets this “false negative” and it affects someone like me who is genuine commenter. I am working with Akismet folks but help from akismet is little and slow so far.

It seems I am not the only genuine commenter who has been affected by Akismet, there are many others who has been affected in past and current times; check out below for folks similar in my situation. If you get a chance read comments inside the articles too, as there are many who are stuck in Akismet hell for wrong reasons.

Using Akismet Wisely

Find out if you are block by akismet

Akismet Comment spam hell

Is akismet wrongly blocking your not spam blog comments?

Punished by Akismet, what do I do?

I thought it might be bad case of IP (new one after rebooting computer) or akismet. Problem seems to be Akismet as for now. I have since send contacted the bloggers to take my comments and rescue from SPAM folder. Many of my friends were kind enough to un-spam my comments but yet it is happening in same blogs again, it has been very frustrating to say the least.

According to Akismet, some blog owners has to un-spam comments a few times before it will make better and if someone by mistake marks my comments as spam the whole thing will start off again. Luckily, I comment on blogs whom I consider friends, but telling them again and again to un-spam me is not a right thing and I do not want to annoy anyone with my frequent requests. A few of my comments are getting deleted all together and you know what is the worse part? that my own comments on my own blog (when I am not logged in) are going in to Heart and Mind’s spam folder? My own blog, can you believe it? Only other person I know personally who has gone through is, Farnoosh from Prolific Living, Farnoosh gives me hope that this might be fixed sooner or later for me as it did with her.

So what is the solution? While I do not have all right answer but some idea so you as a blogger do not have to go through it. Here are some suggestions if you are a commenter or blogger. Read on to see if that might be helpful. What to do, if your comments are going in spam folder? I did checking and found these answers which might be useful to some of you, who are in similar position.

If you are the blog owner:

• If you do not like the comment or commenter, just delete the comment. Be careful as who you consider as a spammer. Although I have read that what you do in your blog, should not affect that person on other blogs but based on my experience opposite is true.
• Check your spam folder to check if there are any genuine comments to make sure and mark them as “not spam”.
• Sometimes you may have to click “not spam”, twice before blogger can truly comment without falling in to your spam folder.

If you are the blogger:

• Check your comments once in awhile to make sure, it is showing up on that blogs.
• If you do not see your comment after sometimes, politely contact the blog owner to check his or her spam folder to make sure.
• Get a gravatar to make yourself look more “real” and unlike “spammer”, based on a few experts. You can get gravatar for free at Gravatar.com .
• If it still persists, you may want to contact Akismet, to let them know about this issue and get it corrected. I have not done it yet as I hope it solves it soon.

Your turn:

Has your comment has been considered as a spam before? What worked for you? I still do not have much knowledge as to why it happened and what to do to avoid it. I sure would like to know any tips any of you may have.

Meanwhile, check your spam folder to see if me or any other authentic comments are not showing up by mistakes in your spam folder!

I still love Akismet plugin but I will be more careful as in internet world, I still have lot to learn. I will be more careful mark someone as a spam, and when it doubt, just delete it instead of marking as a spam.

Have a great week!