This is going to be a super quick post, inspired by my late-night searching while trying to finally enable the anti-spam feature from Akismet (Jetpack) on this website. Every time I went through the Jetpack settings page and tried to enable the Personal version of the tool, I would click the “Learn More” button to try to enable it, but would then find myself on a plain page that simply said, “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page.” When searching for how to resolve that through a normal search engine, I never found anything specific enough to help me. But I finally figured it out with the assistance of an AI chat, and I am so excited about finally fixing this issue that I needed to share it with everyone else.
What’s in this post
How to Enable Akismet Anti-Spam from Jetpack
I don’t know why this didn’t click for me earlier, but Akismet Anti-Spam is a plugin for WordPress, so to be able to enable the feature through the Jetpack main page, you first need the plugin installed on your website.
Once you install the plugin on your site, it is then easy to get it running by going through the entire process as prompted by Jetpack.
Install Plugin from Plugins Page
In your WordPress admin dashboard, click “Plugins > Add Plugins” from the menu on the left side.
On that page, enter “Akismet” in the search box at the top right of the screen, then click “Install Now” on the “Akismet Anti-Spam: Spam Protection” plugin:
You will then be directed through the purchasing process for the plugin, which applies even if you are doing the free personal version of the plugin. You will be asked to set an annual price for yourself (I chose $0 since I’m not currently making money on this site), then finish the “checkout process” using your Jetpack or WordPress account information.
After finishing the checkout process, I was provided with a screen and an API key for the plugin and received an email for setting up the plugin from Jetpack. I copied the API key to a safe location from the checkout screen, then went to my email and clicked the link for setting up the plugin. That took me to a screen in my WordPress admin console where I could choose to manually enter the API key, which I did.
At that point, the plugin was installed, set up, and already protecting me from spam!
Summary
I wish the explanation of how to handle the Akismet anti-spam plugin was a little more straightforward. The “Products” page of the Jetpack section on the admin portal makes it seem like you can get the feature directly from that section of the website, and people (like me) may get confused when they end up at an error screen instead of being prompted to install the plugin.
To enable the Akismet anti-spam feature on your WordPress site, first install it from the “Plugins” page of the admin portal, then work through the process as prompted by the setup process with Jetpack.
