Akismet – “Please enter an API key”

Thank you Moshu, the page worked.

However it says to create a wordpress.com account and when I try it it tells me I already have one by the same name which does not suprise me because I think I already did this some time back.

But it does not let me log in, all it makes mention of is to create a new account.

But it also says that if you already have an account, then ‘your API key is listed on your profile page’

Are they talking about my account on wordpress.com or my blog dashboard?

If I go in my blog to my dashboard => users => your profile, I look and look and do not see any API key.

Where is it?

If it is on my wordpress.com account, how do I get there, instead of every time getting a page telling me to create a new account?

Moshu,

Thank you again for helping. I was not able to recover my account details, but I created a new account and received an email with a password, which I guess is the magid API key.

But this doesn not help me with my existing blog because it is not named the same, I guess.

When I enter the password in the Askimet configuration of my blog, it tells me it is an invalid password, which makes sense, I guess.

So how do I tell Askimet on my existing blog to enable itself? Now it is hosted on a third party ISP, and maybe I will look into having wordpress hosting it in the near future, but for now, I would like to have Askimet working but I can’t because I can’t get a password/API key for it.

Moshu,

Thank you SO MUCH again. Yes, you are right, in my second email from wordpress.com, there was a long long key (much longer than the password of my new account), and when I went to my blog and entered it, Akismet accepted it!!!!

I mistook the password for the key.

Incredible!

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help. It’s been driving me nuts for weeks now because my ISP is really getting the shits with my blog being inundated with SPAM and even got to the stage of blocking it off with a “Error 403 Access Forbidden” status. I couldn’t even get in via FTP, although I could access the actual SQL database via PhpMyAdmin. They even renamed my wp_comments table to wp_comments_SPAM.

I now see that in my plugins, Akismet is “active”. I still can’t believe it, LOL.

I will have to see if there are settings which prevent SPAM from even entering my ISP’s SQL database, rather than just being on mod queue, so that they don’t disable my account again because of 500 robotic spam comments bombarding my blog every 5 minutes.

Do you have any advice on this? I am so scared of doing something wrong!

Again, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

Moshu,

Thank you again. I have downloaded the zip file of BadBehavior and have read the main page of their site and the 20 comments.

I am a little confused, scared and intimated. How do I install it? Do I create a “BadBehavior” directory in the plugin directories and that’s all?

I see some people saying you have to modify the PHP code to invoke it and make it work, but it is not very clear what has to be done exactly.

Can you advise me?

In the meantime, Akismet is doing great. No spam in 24 hours now!

The only thing is that I am still worried that if the spam is filtered out of the blog from viewing but still resides on the SQL database, then my ISP might get the shits again and block off all access to the blog’s site again.

Moshu, you are a genius.

I did just like you said, unzipped, made a “Bad-Behavior” directory under “wp-content/plugins”, FTP’ed to the site, and now WP sees it and allowed me to activate it!!! It’s like sheer magic.

No need to edit any PHP file (One comment really scared be on the BB site, it said something about modifying the htaccess file).

Ok, I will look at the settings of both BB and Akismet and pray I don’t screw thing up!

If I do, I’ll come back crying for help again, LOL 🙂

WordPress is a really impressive piece of software. I wish I could donate some money – when I think of all the thousands of euros I have spent to Mr Bill Gate, it makes me embarrassed that such great software as WP is for free.

And you and all the other ppl who service these forums are awesomely wonderful to dedicate your time and knowledge to help others. Thank you.