Should I Put Captcha On My Blog Comments?

11 March, 2009 - 08:00 PM - 7 Comments

I get around 27-40 SPAM comments per day on all 4 of my blogs and these require me to filter through of them as some legitimate comments do get flagged SPAM by accident. I am considering putting Captcha on my comments, so that the spam gets reduced (auto blast submits will be thwarted and I won’t have as much junk in my spam queue hopefully).

I have seen many other blogs use Captcha, most BlogSpot accounts have it as well, I just wanted to get some other blogger opinions? Do you think Captcha is the way to go, or does it reduce casual commentors from commenting? If you use Captcha on your WordPress blog, what plug-in do you recommend that is fastest? I want a plug-in that does not require a redirect to another page and just allows you to input right on the same page/form without issue.

Let me know what you recommend my friends,

-Dragon Blogger

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Written by Justin Germino (1518 Articles Published)

Working in the IT Industry for over 10 years and specializing in web based technologies. Dragon Blogger has unique insights and opinions to how the internet and web technology works. An Avid movie fan, video game fan and fan of trying anything and everything new.

Follow Justin Germino on Twitter @dragonblogger

Randy from How To Blog Site

Hey Dragon,

So what you are saying is that Akismet is catching all your spam comments you just have to review them?

That really isn't that bad I average about 100-150 spam comments per day that Akismet doesn't catch. These end up being caught by the WP Spam Free plugin that I use in conjunction with Akismet. I haven't had any complaint in the last 18 months of this stopping a comment I would want on and I don't have to use the Captcha and to top it all off it includes a spam resistant contact form.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-spamfree/

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dragonblogger

Right it was the weeding through the spam commment bugging me, it misses some, but it catches more valid comments than it misses good ones. Not everyone who posts a link is a spammer for my blog. Either way I have decided not to use Captcha.

Sean

I agree with the above, go with Akismet rather than Captcha, or you could at least trial Akismet to see if it works then use Captcha if it fails.

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TechBlizz

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blued888

Try what Marjie has said, use the Akismet pluging that comes with Wordpress.

Having Captcha on your comments section might actually cause people to comment less. If you notice, popular sites such as Mashable and ProBlogger don't even use Captcha for their commenting system.

blued888s last blog post..Limited Edition T2 Complete Collectorâ€™s Set (with Endoskull) [Blu-ray] (1991)

I use the Akismet plug-in, and it does create a SPAM inbox, the problem is 1 or 2 of my 40 spams are ones I would want to approve, so I still lose 15 minutes a day sorting through my SPAM comments to find the valid ones.

Marjie

I certainly recommend a captcha if you want to minimize spams in your comment inbox. I've had that experience in blogger once, and captcha definitely worked. However, there's another option for you since you're using wordpress. I also suggest downloading Akismet plugin. It filters any spam comments you may encounter.

Hope this helps!

Marjies last blog post..Lucky Seven