It's nice to have the freedom to allow your visitors to leave comments on your site, especially for things like blog posts or news and events within the church. It helps to generate discussion and engagement with you and your website viewers. However, spammers have found ways to spam comment sections on websites and are a troublesome nuisance. Never fear, Akismet is here!


Akismet, aside from being a plugin that you're currently wondering how to pronounce properly (A-kis-met), is a powerful tool that will eliminate almost all comment spam and prevent it from clogging up your comments on your site. Akismet is a service that is offered for free for non-commercial users, which churches fall under and this tutorial is going to take you step by step in setting it up and enabling it so you don't have to worry about comment spam!


  1. Log into your Sharefaith church website.
  2. Go into the advanced dashboard.


  3. Hover over Plugins and go to Installed Plugins.



  4. You will need to click the Activate link under Akismet.



  5. Once the plugin is activated, you will then need to activate the Akismet API. Click the button to activate Akismet at the top of the page.



  6. Click to get the API key and it will take you to the Akismet site.



  7. Click the button to begin the process of getting your API key.


  8. If you don't have a WordPress.com account, you will need to create a free one to sync it with your Akismet account.



  9. Once logged in, click to approve Akismet using your WordPress.com account.



  10. Now, select the Basic plan for your usage.



  11. They allow you to choose your own price, even free. Slide the slider all the way to the left and try not to make eye contact with the frowny face. Then all you need to provide is a first and last name and click to continue.


  12. The next screen will display your API key. Click the button to have it automatically save the key for you.



  13. You'll be taken back to your site's dashboard and the API key will be automatically entered in. 
  14. The last thing we recommend is adjusting the settings to have it automatically delete anything deemed vulgar from the comment spam so you never have to see it and save your changes.


Akismet eliminates a large majority of spam so you won't have to see it or put up with it, but one may still sneak in here or there. If that happens, you can then mark it as spam so Akismet can learn and catch more as time goes on. 

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