How to add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form:- Do you want to add Google reCaptcha to your WordPress Comment form? For wordpress websites spam comments are gotten out of control. Now the spammers become more sophisticated, they can launch big spam attacks with little effort.
Akismet the most powerful spam filtering plugin, filters out 7.5 million spam comments every hour. Dealing with lots of spam comments can be frustrating and some blogger may prefer completely disable comments on their sites.
Instead of disable comments, you can add reCaptcha to the comments form to eliminate the spam comments.
What is Google reCAPTCHA:-
This is an advanced form of Captcha which is a technology used to differentiate human and robots. CAPTCHA stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.
Google acquired CAPTCHA in 2009 and later rebranded it as reCAPTCHA. Also they made it easy for human to pass the test. Basically reCAPTCHA presents users with a simple check box that they can click to pass the test.
If due to some reasons test doesn’t validate, then user will be presented with a challenge to identify image in text or matching objects in multiple images.
reCAPTCHA is available publicly so that website owners can use it on login pages, contact forms and comments to minimize spam comments.
It’s very easy to setup and add reCAPTCHA to WordPress comments.
How to add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form
Step1: Initially you have to install and activate reCaptcha in WP comments form plugin. After activation visit Settings>> reCAPTCHA in comments page to configure plugin settings.
This plugin will then ask you to enter Google reCAPTCHA API Keys. you can generate these keys for free from official reCAPTCHA site.
Step 2:- Register Your Website to get reCAPTCHA API keys:-
The plugin requires 2 google API keys to add reCaptcha check box. To get the API keys, visit Google reCaptcha website and click on admin console tab located at the top right corner.
Here you have to signin with google account. After that you will see the “register a new site”. Provide some mandatory basic information here.
Initially type your site name in the label field. Then select reCAPTCHA V2 radio button. This will show 3 new options. Since you want to add reCAPTCHA checkbox , you have to select the “I’m not a robot“ option.
The domains text box enables you to add domain name of your site where you like to add reCAPTCHA checkbox. Also you can add other domains & subdomains by clicking on plus icon. This enables you to use same API key on different sites.
Now accept terms & condition checkbox to use Google reCAPTCHA on your site. Also choose “Send alerts to owners” to allow google to send emails if they detect any suspicious activity.
Once form is filled, you can press submit button to register your site. Now reCAPTCHA show you a success message along with site key and secret key on this page.
Step 3: Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress comment forms:-
Go to Settings>> reCAPTCHA in comments from left side of admin panel. On the settings page scroll down to paste the site key & secret key.
Once done, Click on “Save your Google reCAPTCHA API Key Pairs ” to store the API keys. Now the last thing you have to do is enable reCAPTCHA by click on toggle and then click save changes.
Also you do basic styling settings and customization in reCAPTCHA customizer option. The plugin also has antispam settings which allow you to decide what to do when any security breach or spam comments detected.