How To WP Captcha Plugins

How To use  WP Captcha Plugins to stop people from spamming your blog with hundreds of meaningless comments ad other trash!

This “How to WordPress” article will:

1)      Give you the background on WP Captcha (wordpress captcha) and

2)      Other wordpress anti-spam measures and

3)      Will show you how to install several tested and proven WP Captcha measures

4)      Including one pretty unique WP Captcha that is a little less tedious then the standard ones.

How To WP Captcha Plugins – WP Captcha and Blog spamming Background

If you are new to blogging or your WordPress website has just started to bring in traffic (Good job!)  and you don’t have a WP Captcha  or other wordpress anti-spam measure installed then you probably have also been assaulted by spam. This most commonly comes in the form of computer generated blog comments. Mostly from Companies that promise to get a website lots of quality back links for $$$.  Once someone pays these companies they typically create a number of generic blog comments and use software to send them to blogs. These comments are either very generic in nature, with a link back to the Payees website or they are just garbage posts  full of links to web pages.

What Is a WP Captcha Plugin ?

A WP Captcha Plugin is Captcha designed specifically for WordPress. Captcha is a way of keeping computers from automatically submitting blog comments (or anything else like article submissions or creating users to websites etc).  Captcha usually involves forcing a user to enter a group of letters and numbers that are not standard text characters – they are more like pictures that can be read by the human eye but that computer software programs have trouble reading and entering into the required box. Therefore WP Captcha Plugins allow humans to enter the code and sign up or submit a comment but it blocks automated systems from doing so. As a result of the WP Captcha Plugin you will not have 60 – 100 bogus blog comments to delete every week or even every day!

How To WP Captcha Plugins – What WP Captcha Plugins are tested and recommended?

Akismet is a FREE WP anti-spam solution (Not a WP Captcha solution in that it does not require the user to enter anything) that comes with wordpress and can be installed from the wordpress plugins option.. Akismet checks  comments made to your blog against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. If they do it You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. If you don’t have one the comments on the Akismet Plugin (under the plugins section) will give you a link to have it looks yours up by your email address and re-send it to you. With Akismet You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.”. It is a true set and forget plugin words great.

1)      You can insert your wordpress API Key in the Akismet configuration settings which is usually found in the plugins tab of the admin panel right after the “editor”  choice.

2)      Click on Akismet Configuration option

3)      The Akismet  Configuration screen will be displayed. You can add your API key or click on a link to retrieve it and then enter it. When you have done so click on the update option at the bottom of the page.

4)      Now go to your comments section. You will see that there is a new button at the top center of the comments header bar that says “check for Spam” . This is placed there by Akismet. You can click it to force Akismet to check for spam from any comments previously submitted to your blog and waiting for approval.

5)      If Akismet has labeled a comment as spam and you want to approve it then just bring up the comment and approve it.

6)      If Akismet has let a comment slip thru that you want to label as spam or otherwise delete then just do it!

So Akismet is not a true WP Captcha Solution but it is a great WP  Spam solution!

WP Captcha Plugin Ajax Fancy Captcha

Is a WordPress Captcha plugin that helps you protect your web pages from bots and spammers but does not make a user enter the “code” numbers and alphabet characters they see.
The Ajax WP Captcha’s security level is medium, with the emphasis on a user friendly quality while still offering reasonable protection spammers. It just requires the user to drop and drag a picture into the box. Nice and easy and a little less difficult for those of us with bad eyesight and who have trouble distinguishing the normal WP Captcha characters almost as much as the bots do!

Installation

Upload the Ajax Fancy Captcha plugin to your WordPress plugin’s directory. Activate it, configure your preferred color and style, enjoy!

How it works:

It calls captcha.php file and gets a random number. Php file just generates simple number and put it in session. When AJAX got that number it creates items based on that number. Lets imagine that we have array of “pencil”, “scissors”, “clock”, “heart”, “note”, so if number 3 is returned it will take “heart” and look for item-heart.png file in /imgs directory.

WP Captcha – SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam Author: Mike Challis

This is a true WP Captcha plugin. It adds a traditional CAPTCHA anti-spam solution to WordPress on the registration form, the comment form, etc. This WP Captcha forces the user to enter the code shown in the image in the box before they can register or comment. This prevents spam from automated bots. Adds security. Works great with Akismet. Also is fully WP, WPMU, and BuddyPress compatible.

Si Captcha Features:

• Configure from Admin panel
• JavaScript is not required
• Valid HTML
• Section 508 and WAI Accessibility Validation.
• Allows Trackbacks and Pingbacks
• Setting to hide the CAPTCHA from logged in users and or admins
• Setting to show the CAPTCHA on the comment form, registration form, login, or all.
• I18n language translation support (see FAQ)

Requirements/Restrictions:

• Works with WordPress 2.6+, WPMU, and BuddyPress 1.1 -> 1.2.3
• PHP 4.0.6 or above with GD2 library support.
• Your theme must have a <?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?> tag inside your comments.php form. Most themes do. The best place to locate the tag is before the comment textarea, you may want to move it if it is below the comment textarea.

How to install the SI Captcha WP Captcha into your blog:

1)      Click on the Plugins tab in your admin panel

2)      Click on the Add New option

3)      This opens the Add New Plugin Screen

4)      Enter SI Captcha in the search box and click on search plugins.

5)      The SI Captcha (along with other WP Captcha Plugins) will be displayed.

6)      Click on install

7)      It will pop up a second window redundantly. Click on Install Now

8)      Then Click on activate plugin

9)      Go to your plugins tab and the “Si Captcha Options” choice should now exist. Click it.

10)  Click on the self explanatory options and save!

11)  Your SI Captcha is Live and protecting your website!

OK that is enough WP Captcha and WordPress anti-spam measures for today!

You can find more WP-Captcha Plugins by searching in the Add New Plugins!
There are many to choose from.
The WP Captcha solutions I showed here are just free ones that I have used with success!

OK thats it for this How To WP Captcha Plugins article!