Add CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA to Your WordPress Site

Introduction

CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) is a security tool that helps distinguish real human visitors from automated bots. If you’ve been hesitant to add CAPTCHA to your site because you remember the frustrating experience of deciphering distorted text or clicking on crosswalks and traffic lights, we have good news: modern CAPTCHA solutions have evolved significantly.

Today’s implementations, particularly Google reCAPTCHA v3, work invisibly in the background. Your legitimate users won’t see puzzles, checkboxes, or challenges at all. The technology analyzes user behavior patterns to identify bots without adding any friction to your signup flows, contact forms, or purchase processes.

While CAPTCHA isn’t required on every Pressable site, we may request implementation if your site becomes a source of spam issues. Proactive implementation helps protect your site, improves performance, and ensures you maintain control over when and how you add this protection.

Why CAPTCHA Is Important

Adding CAPTCHA protection to your WordPress site provides several critical benefits:

• Prevents automated spam submissions: Bots constantly scan the internet for unprotected forms. Without CAPTCHA, your contact forms, comment sections, and registration pages become easy targets for spam submissions.
• Protects login and registration pages: Automated attacks on login pages can compromise user accounts, slow down your site, and create security vulnerabilities. CAPTCHA blocks these automated attempts while allowing legitimate users through seamlessly.
• Improves email deliverability: When spam originates from your domain, it affects your sender reputation. Email providers may start filtering your legitimate emails as spam or blocking them entirely. Preventing spam at the source protects your ability to communicate with customers.
• Reduces server resource usage: Every spam submission your site processes consumes server resources (CPU, memory, database queries). High volumes of spam can slow down your site for legitimate visitors and may even trigger resource limits.
• Protects your site’s reputation and SEO: Sites that become known sources of spam can suffer SEO penalties and damage to their professional reputation. Search engines may flag your site, and visitors may lose trust in your brand.

CAPTCHA Best Practices

To get the most benefit from CAPTCHA while maintaining a positive user experience:

• Use invisible CAPTCHA solutions: Modern options like reCAPTCHA v3 work behind the scenes, analyzing user behavior without requiring any action from legitimate visitors. This provides strong protection without adding friction to conversions.
• Apply protection to all public-facing forms: Don’t just protect your contact form. Include login pages, registration forms, password reset forms, comment sections, and any other user-facing forms where bots might attempt submissions.
• Combine with other security measures: CAPTCHA is one layer of a comprehensive security strategy. Use it alongside other protections like Jetpack Security (included free with your Pressable site) for defense in depth.
• Monitor and adjust as needed: Keep an eye on your spam levels and legitimate user feedback. If you notice issues, you can adjust sensitivity settings or try different CAPTCHA solutions.

Recommended CAPTCHA Solutions for Pressable Sites

Option 1: Akismet (Included Free with All Pressable Sites)

Akismet is a powerful spam filtering service that comes pre-activated on all Pressable sites at no additional cost. Rather than using traditional CAPTCHA challenges, Akismet analyzes content in real-time against its massive spam database to identify and block spam automatically.

For detailed information about Akismet on Pressable, see our knowledge base article: Do I Need to Configure Akismet?

Many popular WordPress form plugins include built-in Akismet integration, making implementation straightforward:

• WPForms: Akismet integration available in form settings under “Spam Protection”
• Gravity Forms: Built-in Akismet support in form settings
• Formidable Forms: Akismet protection available in anti-spam settings
• Ninja Forms: Includes Akismet integration option
• Contact Form 7: Enable Akismet filtering in the form settings

When you use these plugins, they automatically send form submissions to Akismet for spam checking. Suspected spam is either blocked entirely or marked for review, depending on your configuration.

Option 2: Google reCAPTCHA v3 (Free)

Google reCAPTCHA v3 represents a major advancement in CAPTCHA technology. Unlike older versions that required users to solve puzzles or check boxes, v3 runs completely invisibly. It monitors user interactions across your site and assigns a score based on how likely the visitor is to be human. Suspicious activity gets blocked while legitimate users never even know the protection is there.

Key benefits of reCAPTCHA v3:

• Completely invisible: Zero friction for your users; no puzzles, no checkboxes, no challenges
• Free to use: Google provides reCAPTCHA at no cost for most sites
• Highly effective: Leverages Google’s extensive data on bot behavior patterns
• Works site-wide: Can protect multiple forms and pages with a single implementation

Recommended free WordPress plugins:

• Advanced Google reCAPTCHA: Lightweight plugin with support for multiple form types and flexible configuration options
• Google Captcha (reCAPTCHA): User-friendly interface with extensive compatibility across popular form and login plugins

Both plugins support protecting login pages, registration forms, password reset forms, comments, and work with popular contact form plugins. Check each plugin’s documentation for specific compatibility details.

Step-by-Step Setup Guides

Setting Up Akismet

Akismet is already active on your Pressable site, so you just need to configure your form plugin to use it.

Prerequisites:

• Your Pressable site (Akismet is pre-activated, no license purchase required, no limit on spam checks)
• A form plugin with Akismet support installed and activated

Configuration steps:

1. Choose and install a compatible form plugin from the list above (Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, etc.)
2. Create your form using the plugin’s form builder
3. Enable Akismet protection in the form settings:
   • Look for “Spam Protection,” “Anti-Spam,” or “Akismet” in your form plugin’s settings
   • Enable the Akismet option (the exact location varies by plugin)
   • Save your form settings
4. Test the protection:
   • Submit a test form submission as a legitimate user (it should go through normally)
   • If possible, submit obvious spam content to verify it’s being caught
   • Check your form plugin’s spam folder or settings to see filtered submissions

Troubleshooting:

• If Akismet isn’t working, verify it’s active in your WordPress plugins list
• Check that your form plugin’s Akismet integration is properly enabled
• Review the Akismet knowledge base article for additional details or contact Pressable’s support team for assistance

Setting Up reCAPTCHA v3

Step 1: Obtain API keys from Google (free)

You’ll need to register your site with Google to get the keys required for reCAPTCHA to work.

1. Visit Google’s reCAPTCHA admin console
2. Follow Google’s registration process to create your site keys
3. Choose reCAPTCHA v3 as your version
4. Save your Site Key and Secret Key (you’ll need both)

For detailed instructions on this process, refer to Google’s reCAPTCHA documentation, which will always reflect their current registration process.

Step 2: Install and activate your chosen plugin

1. In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New
2. Search for your chosen plugin (Advanced Google reCAPTCHA or Google Captcha by BestWebSoft)
3. Click Install Now, then Activate

Step 3: Configure the plugin with your API keys

1. Navigate to the plugin’s settings page (usually found under Settings in your WordPress admin menu)
2. Enter your Site Key in the appropriate field
3. Enter your Secret Key in the appropriate field
4. Verify that reCAPTCHA v3 is selected as the version
5. Save your settings

Step 4: Select which forms and pages to protect

1. In the plugin settings, you’ll typically see options for:
   • Login form
   • Registration form
   • Password reset form
   • Comments
   • Contact forms (if compatible plugins are installed)
2. Enable protection for all relevant forms
3. Save your changes

Step 5: Test to confirm it’s working

1. Log out of WordPress and visit your login page
2. Inspect the page source (right-click > View Page Source): you should see reCAPTCHA scripts loaded
3. Attempt to log in with correct credentials (it should work normally)
4. Submit a contact form if you have one protected (legitimate submissions should go through)
5. Check the plugin’s settings or logs to verify reCAPTCHA is actively scoring visitors

Troubleshooting:

• If forms aren’t working, double-check your Site Key and Secret Key
• Verify you selected v3 (not v2) in your plugin settings
• Clear your site cache if you use caching plugins
• Check your browser console for JavaScript errors

Alternative CAPTCHA Options

While Akismet and reCAPTCHA v3 are our recommended solutions, other options exist:

hCaptcha: A privacy-focused alternative to Google reCAPTCHA. Offers similar functionality with additional emphasis on user privacy. Requires separate registration and compatible WordPress plugins.

Cloudflare Turnstile: Cloudflare’s CAPTCHA alternative that works invisibly like reCAPTCHA v3. Good option if you’re already using Cloudflare for DNS or CDN services.

reCAPTCHA v2: The checkbox version (“I’m not a robot”) or image challenge version. More visible to users than v3 but can be useful if you want more granular control over when challenges appear. Uses the same Google API keys as v3.

These alternatives may require additional configuration or different plugins than those listed above. Consult each service’s documentation and available WordPress plugins for implementation details.

Additional Security Considerations

CAPTCHA protection is most effective as part of a layered security approach. All Pressable sites include free access to Jetpack Security, which provides:

• Real-time backup and easy restore
• Malware scanning and automated threat resolution
• Spam protection for comments
• Brute force attack protection
• Downtime monitoring

For information on enabling and configuring Jetpack Security, see our knowledge base article: What is Jetpack Security and How to Enable It

Combining CAPTCHA with Jetpack Security and other best practices (strong passwords, regular updates, limited user permissions) creates comprehensive protection for your WordPress site.

When Pressable May Require CAPTCHA Implementation

While we don’t require CAPTCHA on every site, we actively monitor for spam and security issues across our platform. In certain situations, we may require you to implement CAPTCHA protection:

Scenarios where implementation may be required:

• High volume of spam submissions originating from your site’s forms
• Email deliverability problems caused by spam being sent from your domain
• Server resource issues related to processing large amounts of spam traffic
• Security concerns such as ongoing bot attacks against your login pages

What to expect if contacted by Pressable support:

If your site becomes a source of spam or security issues, our support team will reach out to you directly. We’ll explain the specific problem we’ve identified and provide clear guidance on implementing appropriate CAPTCHA protection. In most cases, you’ll have a reasonable timeframe to implement the solution yourself.

Proactive implementation is always better:

Rather than waiting for spam to become a problem, we strongly encourage implementing CAPTCHA protection now. This gives you control over which solution to use, allows you to test and optimize the implementation on your schedule, and prevents potential disruptions to your email deliverability or site performance.

Summary

Modern CAPTCHA solutions provide powerful spam protection without the frustrating user experience of older implementations. With invisible options like reCAPTCHA v3 and the Akismet service included at Pressable, you can protect your forms, logins, and site resources while maintaining a seamless experience for legitimate visitors.

The free options available (an Akismet license is included with every Pressable site, and reCAPTCHA v3 is free from Google) make this protection accessible to every site owner. Implementation takes just a few minutes but provides ongoing benefits for your site’s security, performance, and reputation.

We recommend implementing CAPTCHA protection proactively rather than waiting for spam to become a problem. This approach gives you more control and prevents potential issues with email deliverability or site performance.

If you need assistance implementing CAPTCHA on your site, our support team is here to provide guidance. Contact us through your Pressable dashboard or via email at help@pressable.com.