CATPCHA.
It’s the root of all evil.
The bane of my existence.
The cause of all my life’s problems.
The evil, gruesome monster that haunts me in my sleep.
I’m going to have a little chat with the CAPTCHA users out there.
UGH! You should really turn off your CAPTCHA. It’s annoying.
But I need it!
Why?
To protect my blog from spammers!
Do you actually get any spammers?
Well.. uhh..
Well, do you?
I would if I turned off my CAPTCHA!
How do you know that?
Because if CATPCHA wasn’t necessary, it wouldn’t exist.
Have you even tried turning it off?
Well… no. I immediately turned it on.
Why did you turn it on if you didn’t have a spammer problem?
Uhh.. because.. everyone says you need it.
Let me tell you a little story about CAPTCHA…
CAPTCHA discourages people from commenting!
People don’t like CAPTCHA. Sometimes, we struggle to read what it even says. Half the time, I’m pressing my nose up against the monitor to try to decipher the strange letters.
One time, I had two tabs open—two different blogs. I commented on one, then switched to the other to write a comment. I switched back to the first one to make sure my comment went through, and realized it had a CAPTCHA. I typed it in, pressed submit, and flipped back to the other blog. Same deal. Typed it in, pressed submit, then switched back to the first one. I had gotten the CAPTCHA wrong. I tried again, then switched back to the second blog. Same deal. I tried again. I switched back to the first, realized I had gotten it wrong AGAIN, and tried a third time. This went on like FIVE TIMES!
CAPTCHA becomes most annoying on “meme days.” When everyone links up their Waiting on Wednesday or Stacking the Shelves posts and you go around from blog to blog to check out all the posts, the CAPTCHA will start to eat your brain. Sometimes I comment on 100-250 blogs per day and if I have to jump through a million CAPTCHAs, I start to question my sanity and my ability to read the basic English language.
If people have to work to comment on your blog, they’d rather give up and not comment then put more effort in.
WordPress Users
If you’re using WordPress, there is absolutely no reason to ever use CAPTCHA! There is an amazing FREE plugin called Akismet. All you have to do is install it, and then Akismet will automatically block all spam on your blog! It filters spam comments out into a designated “Spam” folder and hides them from view. You don’t have to do anything else! I have never had a spam comment get through Akismet. Once every few months a legitimate comment might accidentally get caught in Akismet, but it’s super rare and only happens if the user has loads of links in their comment.
With Akismet, there is absolutely NO NEED for CAPTCHA! So turn it off and join the high rollers club!
Blogger Users
Okay, I have to admit that I don’t know much about the Blogger platform. But from what I’ve heard from Blogger users, they can safely turn off CAPTCHA and never have any problems! They might occasionally get 3 or 4 spam comments a week, but they all get caught by Google’s filter!
At the very least, turn off CAPTCHA for a week or two to test the waters. Your readers will THANK YOU for removing the horrible CAPTCHA! If the spammers suddenly become a huge problem, you can always set comments to have to be approved (this is preferred over CAPTCHA), or reluctantly turn CAPTCHA back on. But you’ll never know until you try!
Spread The Word
Feel free to use these buttons on your blog to showcase your CAPTCHA-free awesomeness! Or if you’d rather not use a button, that’s cool! Tweet about it or nudge your blogger friends and encourage them to turn off CAPTCHA!
I.Hate.Captcha! Period!
and I refuse to comment on blogs that have Captcha, it just annoys me! I try to comment on a lot of blogs during the have time to do so, when I see captcha, I just go on to the next blog and do NOT comment!
I was on Blogger once and seriously, we had nearly no spam. What’s the big deal anyway, it’s not too much to ask to just delete the one tiny spam comment that comes through.
so I might be a bitch for saying so, but I do NOT comment on blogs where I have to “work” to submit my comment!
The End.
🙂
I completely understand Danny! Considering how unnecessary CAPTCHA is, I totally get you. It’s just so frustrating and aggravating! I love commenting on blogs but I don’t want to have to work and suffer through deciphering crazy characters just to be able to do it! 🙁
I’ve never really used Blogger but yeah, I’ve heard a lot of friends say they only get *maybe* 1 spam comment per 1-2 weeks. Deleting that comment is so much better than punishing ALL your readers by using CAPTCHA!
I’m not a fan of the stupid letter captcha which is really hard to read, but it does not really stop me from commeting. Maybe because I’m not out in the community enough? I know as many people who use captcha as I know those who don’t. Anyway, I hate it but think it’s necessary, that’s why I use SweetCaptcha on my WP blog, which is with pictures instead of alphanumerics. However, I still catch me the one or other spam comment. I will try Akismet and turn off SweetCpatcha in the mean time. Hope that works better, otherwise I’ll switch back.
Thanks for bringing it to atttention, though. =)
I definitely don’t mind SweetCAPTCHA as much as regular CAPTCHA, but I promise you that Arkismet will do wonders!! I know WordPress blogs get a lot of spam without any kind of plugin, but Arkismet blocks 100% of my spam comments without any problems. 🙂 Definitely try it out!!
I totally agree that CAPTCHA is a real blogging menace! It is noticeable how many more comment you get when you turn CAPTCHA off. There is just no excuse, especially with Akismet in wordpress!
I have started using CAPTCHA bypass browser extension software called RUMOLA to read them for me because I find the new google recaptchas so hard to decipher! Its meant for blind people but also works for rabid CAPTCHA haters!
Amen sister! I have gotten to the point that if there’s captcha, I just move on to another blog instead. I just can’t stand it! It’s completely worthless! I don’t have it on, use blogger and have NEVER had spam EVER!
Arkismet works fine to my free WordPress blog. The problem is that sometimes by accident Arkismet puts some comments over there which they are from real bloggers and all.. the worse part is i discover after months! But Arkismet is the real deal.
And i dont mind CAPTCHA as long as i can see the letters or the numbers to type in. 🙂 Its takes time i know 🙂
when first introduced it wasn’t too intrusive. Then the recaptcha trend started, which seemed like an admirable idea: use captcha to decode the info in poor quality digitization of old classic books. That turned into a nightmare as it was overused, especially on Facebook. I once tried over a dozen times to post something on FB and was repeatedly rejected because I got the stupid captcha wrong. So yes it reduced my propensity to comment and share links.
Heck Yes. I actualyl had a friend alert me that I had CAPTCHA and I had NO Idea I had it because I don’t have to CAPTCHA when I re-comment. I was SOOOO MAD.
BUT I’m on Captcha Free Team *fistpound*
OMG SERIOUSLY! The horrible thing is people don’t even KNOW they have CAPTCHA because for Blogger users, it’s automatically turned in and you have to manually turn it off and it gets more and more complicated! I don’t even comment on CATCHA blogs or else I really hate them! AND both sites have automatic spam filters >.<
I support this post 100%. As a new book blogger, I was lucky enough to have a designer who told me to just say ‘no’ to captcha, but I feel like many new book bloggers aren’t so lucky. Have you ever suggested to another blogger that they should turn it off? I always want to, but feel it would be overstepping. As of right now, I just deal with it and comment but there may come a day when I just don’t comment and move on.
Thank goodness for that designer! 😀 At first I never told anyone to turn off CAPTCHA. I felt awkward about it. But then I realized that most people who have it turned on don’t even realize it’s on! So I figured they might actually appreciate being told that it is. I started informing people just this weekend and so far I’ve gotten good responses and most people turned it off! It’s like removing CAPTCHA from the blogging world one step at a time LOL
As a blog reader, I 100% agree with you. I have literally decided to not comment or even not enter contests because after failing a captcha multiple times it just wasn’t worth the frustration.
Those things are evil . . . I have seen so many other, easier ways to accomplish the same thing. My library has a similar system but instead of attempting to decipher an alien language, you just have to do a simple equation so it would say “2 + 2” and you just have to type one number. Or I have seen at least one blog that just had “I am not a spammer” as a box you have to check at the bottom of the comment box (like where the ‘commentluv’ button is).
Anything is better than captcha.
amen! There has been a lot of blogs that I go to make a comment on and see that there is CAPTCHA and I just back out of it and don’t even bother commenting. I’m a self hosted WordPress user and while yes, I do get A LOT of spam comments on my site, Akismet does a fantastic job that I never have to see it anymore. Well, Akismet paired with JetPack. 😉
It’s nice to see another Akismet user! 🙂 It certainly does the job, doesn’t it? Spam stands no chance against it!
I have been on Blogger for over a year, with CAPTCHA turned OFF and have had maybe a handful of spam comments slip through – which I promptly delete.
There is no excuse for having CAPTCHA enabled – none!
I don’t refuse to comment on blogs that have it enabled, but if I have to try more than once to post my comment, I’m likely to give up.
Ummm, I use Akismet too but if your site is getting a lot of traffic, you WILL get a lot of spam comments. I installed sweetcaptcha and that took care of the remaining spammers that Akismet didn’t catch. It’s a better captcha system because you don’t have to try to decipher letters and numbers. You just drag and drop a cute picture. I like Askismet, but it’s not perfect and is not a catch all.
I guess it varies for different sites. 🙂 I basically never have a spam comment get through Akismet. If it does happen, it’s like once a month.
I found one that is also on par with sweetcaptcha called minotaur. It basically gets rid of the antiquated text captchas, which seems to be where most of the fuss is. There’s a wordpress plugin for it so far, but not much else.
Thank you for your painstaking analysis why we don’t need CAPTCHA. I have been thinking about turning it off for a while, but now I am going to do it for real. Anyways, I love your writing style, it is really friendly and entertaining. And the badges are cool, I am definitely going to spread the word. 🙂
I know for a fact one of my blog posts had 6 different spam comments in 1 day from the same url/person. 6 spam comments with urls trying to sell something. PayDayLoans was part of the url and the comments they left said nothing worthwhile for what I posted. this person/url did the same thing for several days/months on different posts I made. I had lots of moderation and deletion comments to go through. 25 of them! I definately put captcha on now!
CAPTCHA will prevent legitimate users from commenting. You’re better off banning that user from your site.
And you should activate Akismet if you use WordPress and haven’t already.
I use Blogger and I hate CAPTCHA. Like you said, I actually won’t post my comment if it needs CAPTCHA because it’s so darn frustrating.
That said, I have comments sent to my email for me to publish that way the SPAM can be deleted and no.one has to see them but me. I do get about 4 a month and Google didn’t catch them. But with having comments needing to be approved this solves the SPAM being seen by my followers.
Another great post!