Conditional CAPTCHA plugin Working Like Charm
I have been testing a new plugin (new to me at least) to try and stem the tide of comment spam on one of the WordPress blogs I manage. Its called Conditional CAPTCHA plugin, and its working extremely well!
I have always been reluctant to add CAPTCHA to anything since it is over used and very annoying sometimes, but I get the point. It is supposed to stop automated bots from dumping their spam into web forms. Some work well, some don’t. The main problem is that it is almost always an inconvenience to the innocent users, having to type in some distorted characters just to send the form. If they get it wrong, the form may clear, or partially clear, and they have to re-enter information and try again. After about two tries, if they still get it wrong, they will probably leave.
This works differently. It is a cooperative plugin with “Akismet”, the standard anti-spam plugin that comes with every WordPress installation. Basically, if Akismet thinks that the comment being submitted is spam, it brings up a CAPTCHA form and asks the user to enter the code. I actually use the re-CAPTCHA version which is a whole other story. Anyway, if they pass the test, the comment goes through and still can be moderated. If they fail, the comment is discarded… end of story. The best part is that if the comment is legitimate, which Akismet determines quite accurately, the real person does not have to deal with the CAPTCHA at all. They just submit the comment. This is truly fantastic in my opinion.
The system keeps a running tab of how many spam comments it has blocked using this gadget. So far, the one site I have it set up on has blocked 45 spam comments in the past 4 days. I have zero spam comments in my queue and only legit comments have come through. Does it get any better?
The plugin can be found here. You will need to get an account with re-CAPTCHA and download some keys to get it work best. But I recommend this to anyone. This post is actually a pure unsolicited recommendation. I get no compensation for writing or linking to this. So, take it for what its worth.
related article: http://www.the42ndestate.com/comment-captcha-fail/
[...] There are many anti-blogspam solutions available for your blog software that can help. I recommend Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress. It can really cut down on the automated bot submissions that are just abusing blogs all day [...]
20,118 spam comments have been automatically discarded by Conditional CAPTCHA.
Update: as of 5/6/2011 “17,073 spam comments have been automatically discarded by Conditional CAPTCHA”
This makes managing comments so much easier.
I also use the plug in and it works great in blocking spam.
Update: as of 4/4/2011 — 15,468 spam comments have been automatically discarded by Conditional CAPTCHA
***UPDATE*** As of Nov. 23, 2010 this fantastic little plugin has helped block 6,358 spam comments which were automatically discarded by Conditional CAPTCHA.
Here are the stats since April, 2010: 3,968 spam comments have been automatically discarded by Conditional CAPTCHA.
That’s 3968 spam comments I never see or have to deal with. NICE!
I Installed this plugin on my blog and it’s working like a charm. Good thing is now I don’t have to check my spam comments for real comments and number of spam in my spam queue is less by 95%.
Must have plugin with Akismet to fight spam.