Akismet announced a redesign and complete update of the account dashboard today. Finding out what’s going on with your Akismet account is no longer a cryptic process thanks to the new additions to the dashboard. It now includes helpful stats and a full listing of all your active sites.
Each active account links to a full page of stats that illustrate how effective Akismet has been at deterring spam recently and historically. It’s also a great reminder of how much time Akismet is saving you every day.
The active site listing displays each site that has used your API key within the past 90 days, enabling you to monitor exactly where and how your Akismet account is being used. This will better help users to comply with Akismet’s terms of service agreement, which states:
If you obtain or purchase an API Key, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your API Key, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under the account and any other actions taken in connection with your API Key.
If you scan your list and find that you have client sites and others for which you’re not directly responsible, you might consider getting in touch with them to sign up for their own Akismet accounts.
Billing information for premium users has been streamlined to its own section with quick access to transaction history and receipts.
In the past it was difficult to know where to go for Akismet support. The new support section adds links to key documentation for common questions, the comprehensive knowledgebase, and the Happiness Engineers support team.
The new user-friendly dashboard is a welcome update to Akismet, which has traditionally gone the most minimal route for getting users connected to the service. Sign in to Akismet with your WordPress.com account to check out all the updates.
I think it’s fantastic that they now show you a list of sites that have accessed your API key lately. There are a lot of people that just use their own key for client sites, some I bet people have forgotten about. Time to go check out my API key to see if any sites I don’t remember are using it :)