Reducing spammy user sign-ups

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After following the advice in a previous question (here) I’ve managed to nuke my spam comments. I now, however, find that every day I have a few new members sign up to the site with rubbish e-mail addresses like 7428174812@aweseome-jewlery.co.uk. I could close sign-ups but I’d rather not as I’m hoping the site will beceome a bit more popular and would like to encourage comments.

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3 comments

  1. I have been using Recaptcha which has the added benefit of helping to translate literature. (!)The plugin linked above will add Re-Captcha to your comments or registration form or both. It also has features like themes for the captcha forms. Definitely worth looking into.

  2. Yes.

    The easiest way would be to include a Captcha on your registration page. Most Captcha systems depend on the user’s ability to read a word or answer a question (i.e. “What is 2+3?”). Automated systems like these spam bots have trouble with Captchas, but they’re by no means perfect.

    However, I discovered today a Captcha plug-in that protects the registration page that requires the use to drag color-coded elements onto specific portions of the screen: KeyCAPTCHA.

    This might help. But any spam bot deterrent is better than none.

  3. I would recommend Block Spam By Math Reloaded for the following reasons.

    • There is no registration to a third party site (which always worries me because if they pull the service you could be left with broken forms).
    • It has a decent score on the WordPress site, I find the community scores to be generally quite good at highlighting good/bad plugins.
    • Superfast to install and set up.
    • Can be used to stop comment/login/signup/form spam
    • It has been updated this month (July 2011) so it at the moment at least in current development