I just made a discovery about my comments feature.
When I was having so much trouble with spam, I had to stop allowing comments, and I couldn’t figure out why I was still getting them. Later, I installed the Akismet plugin that catches spam (and does a great job too) and turned the comments back on, but blog posts that were already written still wouldn’t allow comments.
I thought I must have to manually go back to each old post and check “allow comments”. So I did, but once I got past the post where I decided to stop comments, the older posts were fine.
Finally the light bulb went on (sometimes in my head it takes a while) and I realized that when I stop comments from the main options area of WordPress, it only stops them from that point on (not all of my past writing, like I thought it would).
Same thing when I turn the function back on. It only does exactly what I tell it to – now if only I could do that with my husband.
I am new in this business, I hope I can learn to live and work even with spam. I also have Askimet as a plugin to help protect me. Thanks for the idea.
Even with Akismet you should check theirspam filter once in a while, since it sometimes flags a genuine comment.