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WPBeginner» Blog» Plugins» How to Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form

How to Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form

Last updated on May 23rd, 2019 by Editorial Staff
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How to Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form

Are you looking to add reCAPTCHA to your WordPress comment form?

Spam comments have gotten out of control for WordPress websites. As spammers become more sophisticated, they can launch massive spam attacks with little effort.

Akismet, the popular spam filtering service for WordPress blocks about 7.5 million spam comments every hour. Dealing with spam comments can be frustrating, and some bloggers even choose to completely disable comments on their websites.

Instead of turning off the comments, you can add CAPTCHA to the comment form to practically eliminate spam.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to easily add reCAPTCHA to the comment form of your WordPress website.

Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form

What is Google reCAPTCHA?

ReCAPTCHA is an advanced form of CAPTCHA, which is a technology used to differentiate between robots and human users. CAPTCHA is an acronym for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”.

Google acquired CAPTCHA technology in 2009 and then later rebranded it as reCAPTCHA. They also made it easier for human users to easily pass the test.

Basically, it presents users with a simple check box that they can click to pass the test. If for some reason the test doesn’t validate, then the user will be presented with a challenge identifying text in an image or matching objects in multiple images.

Google have made reCAPTCHA publicly available, so that website owners can use it on contact forms, login pages, and comment forms to reduce spam.

Here’s an example of what reCPATCHA test looks like to majority of your users:

Google reCAPTCHA tickbox

It is super easy to setup and add to the WordPress comment form.

With that said, let’s see how to easily add reCAPTCHA to the WordPress comment form with step by step instructions.

Step 1: Get Started

First thing you need to do is install and activate the reCAPTCHA in WP comments form plugin. You can see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin for detailed instructions.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » reCAPTCHA in Comments page to configure plugin settings.

reCaptcha plugin settings page

The plugin will ask you to provide Google reCAPTCHA API keys. You can create these keys for free from the official reCAPTCHA website.

Step 2: Register Your Website to Get reCAPTCHA API Keys

The plugin needs 2 Google API keys to add a reCAPTCHA checkbox to your comment form.

To get the API keys, head over to the Google reCAPTCHA website and click on the ‘Admin Console’ button located at the top right corner of the screen.

Visit Google reCAPTCHA website

You’ll be asked to sign in with your Google account. After that, you’ll see the “Register a new site” page where you need to provide some basic information to register your site.

First, you need to type your website name or any name of your choice in the Label field. This will help you easily identify your site in the future.

Adding a new site

Next, you need to select the reCAPTCHA V2 radio button.

This will open up 3 new options. Since you want to add the reCAPTCHA checkbox to your site, you need to select the “I’m not a robot checkbox” option.

The Domains textbox allows you to add the domain name of your website where you would like to add the reCAPTCHA checkbox.

You can also add multiple domains or subdomains by clicking on the plus (+) icon. This will allow you to use the same API keys on different websites.

Add domain and email to reCAPTCHA site

Under Owners, Google will already add your email address. You can also add another email if you want.

Next, you need to accept the terms of service to use Google reCAPTCHA on your site.

Also, select the “Send alerts to owners” checkbox to allow Google to send emails to you if they detect any misconfiguration or suspicious activity.

Submit and register your WordPress site

Once you’ve filled the form, you can click on the Submit button to register your site.

Google reCAPTCHA will now show you a success message along with the site key and the secret key on this page.

Copy site and secret keys

You can now use these API Keys in plugin settings on your website.

Step 3: Add reCAPTCHA to WordPress Comment Form

Head over to Settings » reCAPTCHA in Comments from the left sidebar of your admin panel.

On the settings page, you need to scroll down to paste the site key and the secret key.

Add Google API keys to WordPress site

Once you’re done, click on the “Save your Google reCAPTCHA API Keys pair” button to store the API keys.

The last thing you need to do is enable reCAPTCHA by clicking on the toggle button and then click on Save Changes.

Activate Google reCAPTCHA on your site

You can also do basic customization by clicking on the reCAPTCHA Customizer option.

Customize reCAPTCHA appearance

Here you can make changes to the style, size, and alignment of the reCAPTCHA checkbox.

The plugin also has Antispam Settings option which allows you to decide what to do when the plugin detects an unauthorized comment or security breach.

What to do with spam comments

Congratulations, you’ve successfully added reCAPTCHA to your WordPress comment form. You can now check the comment section of your blog posts to confirm that it’s working properly.

Note: the reCAPTCHA checkbox will be displayed only to logged out users, so you will need to either log out or open your website in an Incognito window of your browser to preview reCAPTCHA.

WordPress comment form with reCAPTCHA enabled

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to add reCAPTCHA to the WordPress comment form of your website.

You may also want to check out our guide on how to lazy load comments in WordPress to improve the page loading time.

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

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18 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. jodarove says:
    Nov 20, 2020 at 11:00 am

    Thank you! very helpful!

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Nov 23, 2020 at 11:29 am

      You’re welcome :)

      Reply
  2. Duncan McCormack says:
    Jun 6, 2020 at 7:22 am

    re the reCAPTCHA section when you visit the plugin it says at the top: This plugin hasn’t been tested…

    Is this still the best Plugin to use? Is it safe? Or is there now a better one out there?

    Cheers, Duncan.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 8, 2020 at 3:27 pm

      For the not tested warning, you would want to take a look at our article below for our recommendations on this:
      https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/should-you-install-plugins-not-tested-with-your-wordpress-version/

      Reply
  3. Steve says:
    Jan 26, 2020 at 9:54 pm

    I followed the instructions exactly and the reCaptcha button will not appear on my site at all. Signed out of WP. Incognito window. nothing.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 27, 2020 at 1:16 pm

      Please reach out to the plugin’s specific support to see if this could be due to a conflict between your specific theme and the plugin itself.

      Reply
  4. Desi says:
    Oct 10, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    This plugin is no longer working. I have installed it and none of the buttons will toggle.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Oct 11, 2019 at 10:29 am

      You would want to reach out to the plugin’s support and let them know to help remove the issue.

      Reply
  5. DonDee says:
    Sep 6, 2019 at 4:01 pm

    FYI… The new v3CAPTCHA does not provide a clickable “I am not a Robot” conformation. The only way to tell if it’s running on the site is a CAPTCHA icon floating in the lower right hand side of the screen on the site you’re on.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Sep 9, 2019 at 9:13 am

      Thanks for sharing this for anyone using v3 :)

      Reply
  6. Pradeep Singh says:
    Jul 30, 2019 at 7:33 am

    Hello

    If I am using Akismet antispam plugin still I need to use reCaptcha technology?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jul 30, 2019 at 10:07 am

      That would be a personal preference question, both are tools to help prevent spam and will work together.

      Reply
  7. pepe says:
    Jul 24, 2019 at 10:02 am

    The recaptcha is not showing! :( help!

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jul 25, 2019 at 10:53 am

      You may want to check your site in an incognito browser where you’re not logged into your site to make sure it isn’t hiding for your admin user.

      Reply
  8. bob martin says:
    Jun 12, 2019 at 2:16 am

    Help! I clicked on save api keys button like tutorial said and now my site isn’t working at all.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 12, 2019 at 10:51 am

      It would depend on what your error is for the cause and possible solution, for a starting point you would want to take a look at our guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-troubleshooting-wordpress-errors-step-by-step/

      Reply
  9. Eva Live says:
    May 23, 2019 at 1:26 pm

    Does this mean if I use this, I don’t really need to moderate all comments? I don’t like that comments don’t show up as soon as they are posted, it has to wait until I get around to reviewing comments.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      May 24, 2019 at 9:51 am

      You would still need to moderate comments, reCAPTCHA is a way to prevent spam from bots but there can be other comments you don’t want on your site :)

      Reply

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