Akismet is a powerful plugin for detecting spams but sometimes it puts some good comments also in spam list. You can reduce this type of activity by making your WordPress site commenters to solve a simple CAPTCHA only if Akismet thinks that their comment is spam.
Install and activate Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress plugin. The provides a CAPTCHA complement to Akismet:
- If Akismet identifies a comment as spam, it will ask the commenter to complete a simple CAPTCHA.
- If they fail, then the comment will be automatically discarded or trashed (and won’t clutter up your spam queue).
- If they pass, it will be allowed into the spam queue (or approved, if you so choose).
- Meanwhile, genuine commenters (i.e., those not flagged by Akismet) will be able to comment on your site hassle-free.
Its default CAPTCHA is a simple text-based but you have option to use reCAPTCHA if you like to have something more robust but note that this requires getting a free API key. You can also style the CAPTCHA page to fit with WordPress theme you are using. For this plugin to work you must have Akismet installed and activated in your WordPress site.