CAPTCHA: Use It Or Not?

[BC-Rob]

Think about why someone would want to use your login/signup forms for.

If they can get a benefit from your site just by registering and not logging in, put a CAPTCHA on registration.

If by login, put it there as well.

[AdamC]

Most captchas work well.
RECAPTCHA, on the other hand, tends to attract spam!

Here are two reasons as to why I hate RECAPTCHA:
1 - OCR has resulted in a mid to high cracking rate
2 - Cheap labour in countries such as China means companies pay to get them bypassed (As low as $0.0001 per captcha!).

It's a very, very simple thing to code and I would only recommend using a custom coded one such as this:
Create a custom captcha

[seoconj]

It depends on the function. For instance, let's say you have a squeeze page with a lead generation form. You promote the page via PPC ads (no organic linking). What good would a captcha do?

If spammers don't know that the page exists, all your captcha is doing is decreasing your conversion rate. In fact, I probably wouldn't include a captcha on any mission-critical conversion form unless it's absolutely necessary.

If you have a WordPress blog and akismet is active, and you want your blog comments section to be active, a captcha seems like a very bad idea. You have a pretty good spam filter, so is it really necessary to prevent the spammers from spamming in the first place?

It discourages people from doing what you want them to do. You need to weigh the benefits of spam reduction against the costs of lower conversions / worse usability.


Derek
Business Computer Sales, Computer Repair, Networking

[AdamC]

Originally Posted by seoconj

It depends on the function. For instance, let's say you have a squeeze page with a lead generation form. You promote the page via PPC ads (no organic linking). What good would a captcha do?

If spammers don't know that the page exists, all your captcha is doing is decreasing your conversion rate. In fact, I probably wouldn't include a captcha on any mission-critical conversion form unless it's absolutely necessary.

If you have a WordPress blog and akismet is active, and you want your blog comments section to be active, a captcha seems like a very bad idea. You have a pretty good spam filter, so is it really necessary to prevent the spammers from spamming in the first place?

It discourages people from doing what you want them to do. You need to weigh the benefits of spam reduction against the costs of lower conversions / worse usability.


Derek
Business Computer Sales, Computer Repair, Networking

It would stop automated bots sending junk data to the form.
I have a few forms which receive spam for no other reason that pinging the site.

Example form data sent:
Name: asdliyghabha
Email: [email protected]
Domain: afvevvlnnb.com
Message: reerfiounhjhjhjjuoikmn

Of course all the data is invalid, but it gives the spammer a means to check your details.

It's comparable to leaving blocking a routed port as opposed to stealthing it... It tells spammers that there is something there rather than nothing.

I'm sure you're aware that spammers don't actually check 99% of the sites they spam to.. Simply create a script to scrape google dorks, run them through a filter, then spam pages with common terms such as "your message:" and store the hits to a file for real spam at a later date (usually sold to highest bidder as "SEO").

I run a hosting company so deal with this on a daily basis and won't be changing how I do things.

Using a captcha won't decrease your conversions by a huge amouynt... Using an ugly, or hard to read, captcha will!

I think akismet is over rated.
I know of several easy ways to fool it.

[bluerain]

Whether it is using captcha or another method of human verification, you really shouldn't be running without anything. Contact forms on websites for instance, if they get run across by spambots, can end up having loads of spam submitted messages every day. It is a pain in the you know what that is entirely unnecessary to deal with.

[steveblake]

Most likely it prevent spam. It is often used when clicking the submit button to avoid spam and it also prevent spam robots.

[Creative Pile]

Make sure to use it if you dont want spam bots leaving fake comments.

[jamest1]

It all depends on the amount of spam bots you are getting to your site. You need to measure the ratio between actual users and bots and then make a decision.

Personally I find captchas really annoying.. I could never answer the questions correctly. I guess they think that I am a bot haha.

Since my site is fairly new, I wont be using captchas since I need all the customers I can get