How to Add a WordPress CAPTCHA to Cut Down On Spam

Keeping your WordPress Away from spammers and make sure its Secure is an essential part of website maintenance. There are many steps you must take in order to secure it one of them is adding CAPTCHA. CAPTCHA is a unique feature that you can add to your site to cut down spam. CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. This is mainly designed to block attacks and spam and protect your sensitive data and information. It also restricts access to vital features of your website. Well, this is not foolproof security plan but it can save your website to some extent and help improve user experience as well. So what about WordPress CAPTCHA ? Here in this post, we are going to discuss pros and cons of Captcha and various types of Captcha. We will also introduce you to the process and tools to add this amazing feature to your website as well.

Types of Captcha:

Captcha provides the test, designed to differentiate between computer programs or bots and humans. There are various types of Captcha formats available and you may use them as per your requirement.

Read the image or curved letters:

This is a very common form of Captcha. In this type of Captcha, numbers or alphabets are  displayed in distorted or curved manner. Bots and other computer programs can get confused by it but human beings can easily understand these curved letters or images.

Solve a basic math problem:

Sometimes in these kinds of Captcha, you  are asked to pick the image and solve math problem like given below:

 

The No Captcha Recaptcha

This is a new variety of Captcha that is implemented by Google that only needs users to check the box as given in the image below. It is just to monitor the mouse movements in order to find out whether you are a human or not.

Let’s talk about the Pros and Cons of using a WP CAPTCHA:

The main objective of CAPTCHA is to offer security to sensitive information or pages on your website. This feature proves very useful when it comes to stop malicious bots from getting access to sensitive information or creating spam. It is generally used as part of order form, login or registration. However, in spite of being so useful in preventing malicious attacks, there are some disadvantages of this feature as well. Few of them are listed below:

• This feature may annoy your website users
• These are not foolproof solution as smarter bots can crack them

You can still add them to your WordPress website as they are useful at various pages or occasions where user has to enter personal info such as on login pages, checkout screens and registration forms. Okay enough talk lets add it to your WordPress site. Well there are so many plugins available for it but we have mentioned two of them which utilize Google’s “No CAPTCHA reCAPTCHA”.  This type of Captcha is less annoying and does great job without causing inconvenience to your users.

1. Google Captcha:

This plugin allows you to add it to any form on your WordPress website like comment forms, contact, login and registration forms. It also provides you so other customisation options as well.

2. Advanced noCaptcha reCaptcha

This is somehow similar to the Google Captcha but it also provides niche options for how it appears and where it is placed. Therefore, you can add it to your forums or ecommerce web pages and adjust the appearance and size as well. The Process of configuring both plugin is almost same. So we have explained how to setup Google Captcha WordPress Plugin.

Let’s talk about the process to implement it on your WordPress website

• Log in to WP as administrator and click plugin under dashboard and then click on Add New
• Type ‘Google Captcha’ in search text and then click on “Search Plugin”
• Locate the Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA) plugin
• Install and Activate it. Now you will see a new menu item in left as Google Captcha, click on it and you will see this screen.

• You need to go to Google Captcha Settings
• Enter Google API Keys under settings
• Register your site with Google
• Copy the keys (you are provided with), paste it and save it
• Select reCaptcha button
• Click registration link under authentication and follow the instructions mentioned below:
• You will get two keys from Google. One will be private key and one will be public key. Copy these keys and paste them in respective text boxes.
• Under “Options”, you may select the settings as per your requirement. Once you have selected the settings, you should click on Save.
• You have now successfully activated Captcha on your website.
• Now to test it, you should click on Comment link on front page of your website. WordPress will display a Captcha in submission form.

Now you just need to choose the type of form you want to use for a reCAPTCHA option. You will find so many options to customize it. You can save the changes once you are satisfied with your WP CAPTCHA. Now you need to visit the form and test it. As you can see, this is an extra security layer that you have added to your site.

Conclusion:

WordPress is loved by millions of people and that includes people who do spamming too for their own benefit. So As a WordPress site owner its your responsibility you not let your site become their victim and Google Captcha helps you to attain that. Security is an essential part of any site and CAPTCHA adds a layer to it. It can be a little annoying for your users, but if you use it carefully, its very beneficial.  And for Secured WordPress Themes Check our Premium Themes.