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WPBeginner» Blog» WordPress Plugins» How to Add CAPTCHA in WordPress Login and Registration Form

How to Add CAPTCHA in WordPress Login and Registration Form

Last updated on January 6th, 2015 by Editorial Staff
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How to Add CAPTCHA in WordPress Login and Registration Form

Spam registrations can be a headache for WordPress membership sites specially the free ones. One way to avoid them is by using CAPTCHA which effectively blocks spam bots on both login and registration forms. In this article, we will show you how to add captcha in WordPress login and registration form.

Preview of CAPTCHA enabled on WordPress registration page

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Better WordPress reCAPTCHA plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item labeled BWP reCAPT in your WordPress admin. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s general settings page.

BWP reCaptcha general settings page

You will be asked to provide the public and private API keys to use Google’s recaptcha API. To obtain these API keys, you need to visit reCAPTCHA website and click on the Get reCAPTCHA button.

Get reCAPTCHA using your Google Account

On the next screen, you need click on the Signup or Sign in button and login using your Google account. Once you are logged in, you will be asked to enter a domain name where you plan to use reCAPTCHA.

Enter domain name

Next, you will need to click on My Account tab and then select your domain name. This will take you to the page with your public and private API keys.

Copy your public and private api keys to use reCAPTCHA on your site

Copy and paste your public and private API keys on the plugin’s general settings page in your WordPress admin area. Below the API keys, under the Plugin Functionality section you need to check the boxes next to Registration form and Login form options.

Enable reCAPTCHA for login and registration forms

Better WordPress reCAPTCHA plugin also allows you to add reCAPTCHA to your WordPress comments form. If you want, then you can also enable reCAPTCHA for comments.

That’s all, you can now click on the Save Changes button to store your settings.

To see the recaptcha in action, logout of your WordPress admin area. You will see recaptcha enabled on your login form. Click on the register link, and you will also see it in action on your WordPress user registration page as well.

CAPTCHA enabled on WordPress login screen

W hope this article helped you add CAPTCHA in WordPress login and registration forms.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Google+.

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25 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Richard Talbot says:
    Jan 22, 2019 at 8:31 pm

    The plugin you recommend in this post has been pulled from the repository for security issues.

    “This plugin was closed on November 9, 2018 and is no longer available for download. Reason: Security Issue.”

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 23, 2019 at 1:51 pm

      Thank you for letting us know, we’ll certainly take a look at updating this article.

      Reply
  2. David Dabney says:
    Jan 16, 2019 at 10:01 am

    You should remove or update this post since the plugin you mention (Better WordPress ReCaptcha) has been pulled from the repository.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 16, 2019 at 11:30 am

      Thank you for letting us know, we’ll certainly take a look at updating this article.

      Reply
  3. Ashoora says:
    Apr 2, 2018 at 5:58 pm

    Do i need to upgrade my site to business class to instal this plugin to my site? Please help me out

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Apr 3, 2018 at 1:37 pm

      Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.

      Reply
  4. Angela says:
    May 18, 2017 at 4:14 pm

    Hi, new to wordpress…got the Captcha loaded and it is functioning, although it is not acting as a required field.

    My form code is custom to my CRM program, so I had it as html using a text box. I added google’s snippits in the places google recommended, and with the Captcha installed it is collecting the submitted data whether the captcha check box has been checked or not. Kind of defeats the purpose. Can anyone advise where I may have gone wrong?

    Reply
  5. raj says:
    Apr 29, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    How to Add CAPTCHA in WordPress site at the home page itself. That will ensure that they is no automated traffic to my webpage. Could you help me with this?

    Reply
  6. Arvind says:
    Oct 25, 2016 at 7:13 am

    what is bmw recaptcha runing in localhost……

    Reply
  7. John says:
    Jun 11, 2016 at 5:31 pm

    reCAPTCHA does not appear on login page. It appears else where on our website but on the login page. this is really strange. anyone can help solving this issue.

    Reply
  8. Craig says:
    Feb 24, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    Just thought I’d let all know
    Plugin was updated to 2.0.3 (2016-01-13)

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Feb 24, 2016 at 11:56 pm

      Thanks.

      Reply
  9. Stef says:
    Dec 14, 2015 at 11:27 am

    Do you have a hand coded version instead of using a plugin?

    Reply
  10. Zeeshan says:
    Sep 21, 2015 at 2:45 pm

    Hello
    i want to add captcha to my contact form in WordPress theme. How can i add it ?

    Reply
  11. Anmol Khatri says:
    Sep 10, 2015 at 4:03 am

    How to add reCaptcha in Login and Registration page not in wp-admin. Any solution

    Reply
  12. Dmitrii Kustov says:
    Jun 22, 2015 at 2:01 pm

    Hi there! Finally, useful article. We have been getting lots of spam registrations for our blog and today i was trying to find any plugin to prevent that. There is practically no info anywhere. Your article surely helped.

    However, google recaptcha is using old version of it, with numbers from signs and stuff, when latest version uses the “i’m not a robot” thing.

    Are you aware of any upcoming updates?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 24, 2015 at 12:48 pm

      Check the plugin’s page and author profile to see if you can reach out to them.

      Reply
  13. Pattie says:
    May 26, 2015 at 5:49 pm

    The plugin has not been updated for 10 months and is not tested with Version 4.2.2.

    Do you have any other suggestions?

    Kindest
    Pattie

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      May 27, 2015 at 12:10 pm

      Please see this article: Should you install plugins not tested with latest WordPress version.

      Reply
  14. Dolomats says:
    Jan 30, 2015 at 4:57 pm

    I would like add it without plugin do u have any tutorial for that please ?

    Reply
  15. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Dec 24, 2014 at 7:33 pm

    Simply deactivate the plugin.

    Reply
  16. Ivan says:
    Dec 23, 2014 at 11:54 am

    Hi,

    I applied the plugin to my site but it appeared “Could not open socket” on wp-login.php What can I do to retrieve back to normal?

    Thx

    Reply
  17. Arevico says:
    Nov 14, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    Great article on how to install a captcha, however I find that captchas are user unfriendly and we do have to keep the goal in mind. Even with a captcha, higher traffic membership website are susceptible to spammers hiring other people to fill in captchas (quite common).

    In my opinion, for the majority of blogs a hybrid approach with honeypot email fields, (maybe a drag-and-drop captcha) would be enough. I think that if spam could be reduced to sustainable levels, you shouldn’t sacrifice usability.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Staff says:
      Nov 14, 2014 at 8:15 pm

      We agree that captcha are not very user-friendly. This is why we do not recommend using them on comments. However, using them on login and registration page is a lesser evil. Users will only have to fill in captcha when registering. They can check the remember me box for login and will not have to fill CAPTCHA for a long time.

      Captcha may not eliminate spam registrations completey but it will certainly block many common brute force and automated registration bots.

      Reply
      • Missy says:
        Dec 13, 2015 at 5:16 pm

        Do you have a CAPTCHA site that is better now? The one listed is almost gone a year without updating.

        Reply

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