I used to get a ton of spam
If you have a blog then you probably have had to deal with comment spam. I know I certainly had my share of spammy comments left on my blog.
I have nearly 14,000 spam comments on my blog:
I didn’t enjoy digging through a ton of spam to find a handful of good comments.
Traditional Captchas
So my solution was to install a traditional captcha system that required visitors to type in the letters displayed in an image like this:
Unfortunately these captchas are often hard to read and can drastically reduce the number of your blog posts receive.
This happened for my blog; my comment count plummeted.
I knew I had to find a better solution.
I Installed WP-Num-Captcha
After a fair amount of searching I came across WP-Num-Captcha and I installed it.
This plugin places a small math question (i.e. 7 + 2 = ? ) that must be answered when a comment is posted.
Since installing it my comment count has returned to its normal level and I now receive virtually no spam.
Can’t spammers get around it?
In theory spammers certainly could get around this and it would not be difficult.
But thus far they have not. I believe they are too busy attacking sites that have no captchas.
Download the plugin here
You can download the plugin for free here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-num-captcha/
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I hate traditional captchas for the very reason they're difficult to read. IMHO ReCAPTCHA is the best and most legible implementation that is alphanumeric, but I've seen a lot of these numeric captchas appearing. Unfortunately I think that once these see widespread use it won't be long before these are cracked. Nevertheless, for the time being this could be a worthy tool in the fight against spam.
Thanks JamesM!
This is a great idea using the math captcha…
I have posted bookmarks on the different bookmarking sites and on in particular (StumbleUpon) uses a really large and obnoxious captcha.
What a waste of time! I don't see why everyone wouldn't use a system like this.
It just makes sense and its easier to read.
Thanks for pointing this out. I will have to implement it on my own sites.
Thanks Leslie. Let's hope the spammers don't start getting past it.
I am using Growmap anti-spam plug in instead of captcha. The plug in is very effective in blocking spam comments.
I see that the comment box on this post is not using wp-num-captcha. It looks like you've switched to GASP?
jponiato recently posted..Warrior Dash – Training Progress
Yup I switched to GASP.
not work in wp 3.1.2
Strange. But to be honest I haven't used this plug-in for awhile.