Comment SPAM

Hi.
I’m new at WordPress, migrating over from Blogger. My old blog was somewhat popular in my circle and got a decent sized following and viewing. I rarely received any SPAM there. On WordPress, though, it’s unreal. I launched my blog maybe two weeks ago and I have 28 SPAM comments that I did not delete yet.

I have the Akismet plugin installed and activated. I believe that’s calling the messages into question. It’s not enough, though. Is there anything stronger that can automatically delete them?

I saw an article here and it gives what sounds like great advice:
“4. Use a Custom WordPress Function to Ban Empty Referrers
On most of the occasions, spam commentators never visit your blog and you can use this principle to drastically reduce comment spam.

Log in to WordPress administration area of your blog and go to “Theme Editor”. Select your blog’s theme and open the functions.php file for editing. Paste the following code:

<?php
function verify_comment_referer() {
if (!wp_get_referer()) {
wp_die( __(‘You cannot post comment at this time, may be you need to enable referrers in your browser.’) );
}
}
add_action(‘check_comment_flood’, ‘verify_comment_referer’);
?>”

Any idea of how successful that would be? Any other methods to fight this dastardly SPAM?

Thanks,
Scott