Spamming on WordPress blogs has become vital, just kidding, increasing day-by-day. You must be here looking up for solution to stop spam on your blog as well. To stop spam comments, I have covered two articles on How to Block Spam using HTACCESS and using Akismet Plugin. But these tutorials will only help you to stop spam commenting on your blog but not on contact forms. For a spammer, it’s just a Submit button required to do all the action.
If your WordPress Blog is using Contact Form 7 plugin, then beware that you can be spammer’s next target. Recently, I received few spam comments on my Email via Contact form 7 on thecreatology and it got worst with count of 50+. Annoying! Below is screenshot of the Inbox:
Spam Messages from Contact Form 7
I tried tracking IP Address of all emails and the origin, but it was hard to block spammer access because they used a random IP Address every time. So, I had to install CAPTCHA in Contact Form 7 settings. In this tutorial, you will learn how to add CAPTCHA in Contact Form 7 Plugin to block Spam on Website.
Block Spam using CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA is an automated scripts made to validate forms submission. CAPTCHA reforms a word every time it refreshes. This makes it complex for spam bot to read CAPTCHA letters and auto submit form. To add CAPTCHA in WordPress Contact form, you will be required to install Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin. Below is stepwise procedure to add CAPTCHA in Contact form 7.
Step 1: Install Really Simple CAPTCHA Plugin
To install WordPress CAPTCHA plugin, login to WordPress dashboard:
- Navigate to Dashboard > Plugins > Add new Plugin.
- Search for Really Simple CAPTCHA plugin and click to install it. Refer to screenshot below.
Install CAPTCHA plugin
- One the plugin is installed, activate it.
Are done with installation of plugin? Move on to configure Contact Form 7.
Step 2: Add CAPTCHA to Contact Form 7
You can add CAPTCHA in contact form in few easy clicks. Follow the procedure below:
- Login to WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Dashboard > Contact.
- Select the contact form to edit it, refer to the screenshot below.
Select Contact Form To add CAPTCHA
- To add CAPTCHA, click on the Generate Tag drop down list on right, and select CAPTCHA option in the list, just like in the screenshot below:
Generate CAPTCHA Tag for Contact Form
- After you click on the CAPTCHA option, CPATCHA setting options will appear under the Generate Tag drop down list. Now, configure the options and copy-paste the code on the left side of the window. Refer to screenshot below:
Add CAPTCHA to contact form code
- Once done, hit the Save button on top right and We’re Done!
We’re Done
Now that you have added the code, refresh the contact form page and check it out, it will look similar to screenshot below:
Demo: CAPTCHA on WordPress Blog
Adding CAPTCHA will violate bots to submit spam on website. In a way you can focus more on blogging rather administering your blog.
In this article, we learned to add CAPTCHA in Contact Form 7 WordPress Plugin to block spam. If you have any queries or require any assistance, you can post a feedback using comment form below.
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17 Comments
{ read them below or add one }
thanks i needed that tutorial !
Aky,
Thanks so much for this tutorial. I used the Contact Form 7 on a website that was getting spammed to death. I’d been dreading figuring out how to solve the problem.
I did a search for: add a captcha code to contact form 7, and there you were.
Awesome Tutorial,
Glen
I am glad you liked it, I hope it was easy and effective.
thx man, appreciate the info, got it working now !!!!
hi need to redirect the contact form page to thanks you page after submission
what i can do ..
This is the best description I’ve seen, unfortunately it didn’t work for me
Any suggestions??
Really nice but still receiving spam any suggestion?
Well if the spam is still troubling you, then probably you should contact thecreatology support team. I am sure you will find a resolution with them.
Unfortunately CAPTCHA on my screen is really light yellow. It is basically unreadable. I am trying to change the foreground color but nothing seems to work:
1. Changing “Foreground color” through “Contact Form 7″ did not work.
2. $this->fg = array( 0, 0, 0 ); – changing this value did not do anything either.
Any other suggestions? Please help!
I have added simple captcha but showing warning permissions denied to really-simple-captch.php
Oh, that is a weird of an Error! I hope you followed above steps precisely? Also, it would be great if you can copy/paste the exact error code here (in your comment reply).
Aky,
Thanks very much!! Works like a charm!
Great tutorial
Krys
Thanks so much for this tutorial! Been looking all over for a way to add a simple CAPTCHA to Contact Form 7 .. good job.
Chuck
Great tutorial – very easy to follow and implement! Thank you…
Thanks for your tutorial. It was most helpful.
For those having problems with the captcha code not being visible, try making the foreground color black, 000000 or some other darker color. This helped me.
Perfect – Just what I needed!!
Very useful to us, thank you. We are experimenting with a few different anti-spam measures for the contact forms on our site – have you had better luck with CAPTCHA, or the built-in quiz option in Contact Form 7? (Or both? Or something else?)