Wordpress and spam

[bad_brain]

most of you know already that I really like Wordpress, almost all of my customer sites are done with it....but what always is a bit of an issue with WP is spam. ok, you have that "Akismet" plugin that comes bundled with a new WP install already (you still have to register to get an API key though), but what I find a bit disappointing is the fact that there is nothing that helps you to protect your WP site further from spam...I mean, Akismet works with a database, and to get blacklisted there means there has been some spamming activity already.
what I also dislike is the lack of an on-board captcha for comments and signing up.

so you always have to go for 3rd party plugins to get your a decent protection, I still recommend good ol' recpatcha (there are a bunch of plugins) to protect any kind of forms like the comment functionality and the sign-up, and also for the usual contact form ("Contact Form 7" support recaptcha out of the box for example).

here's a little list of plugins I highly recommend, if you install them all you have a very secure site already:
http://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-spamm ... ns-plugin/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-form-7/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://wordpress.org/plugins/contact-fo ... extension/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-recaptcha/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and just as little warning, taken from a customer site with decent traffic:

[ph0bYx]

Dayum, that's a lot of spam. Thanks for the suggestions, it will come in handy