Including reCAPTCHA in Contact Form 7 can be an excellent method to stop spam submissions and guarantee that your website’s contact form is being utilized by genuine human users. In this article, I will walk you through the steps of integrating reCAPTCHA into Contact Form 7 and also share my own personal experiences and insights.
What is reCAPTCHA?
reCAPTCHA is a free service provided by Google that helps protect your website from spam and abuse. It uses advanced risk analysis techniques to determine whether a user is a human or a bot, and provides a frictionless user experience for legitimate users.
Step 1: Install and Activate Contact Form 7
The first step is to make sure you have Contact Form 7 installed and activated on your WordPress website. Contact Form 7 is a popular contact form plugin that allows you to easily create and manage contact forms.
Step 2: Get reCAPTCHA API Keys
To use reCAPTCHA with Contact Form 7, you will need to get API keys from the reCAPTCHA website. Go to the reCAPTCHA website and sign in with your Google account. Once you’re signed in, you can create a new site and get the API keys.
Step 3: Configure reCAPTCHA in Contact Form 7
In your WordPress dashboard, go to the Contact > Integration settings page of Contact Form 7. Scroll down to the “reCAPTCHA” section and enter your reCAPTCHA API keys in the appropriate fields.
Next, you can choose the reCAPTCHA version you want to use. Contact Form 7 supports both reCAPTCHA v2 and reCAPTCHA v3. For this tutorial, we will focus on reCAPTCHA v2.
After configuring the API keys and selecting the reCAPTCHA version, save the settings. You have now successfully configured reCAPTCHA in Contact Form 7.
Step 4: Add reCAPTCHA to Your Contact Form
Now, you need to add the reCAPTCHA field to your contact form. Open the contact form you want to add reCAPTCHA to in the Contact Form 7 editor. You can add the reCAPTCHA field by using the following shortcode:
[recaptcha]
Place this shortcode inside your contact form, wherever you want the reCAPTCHA field to appear.
Step 5: Test Your Contact Form
After adding the reCAPTCHA field to your contact form, it’s important to test whether everything is working correctly. Fill out the contact form and submit it to see if the reCAPTCHA validation is working. If the form is submitted successfully, congratulations! You have successfully added reCAPTCHA to your Contact Form 7.
Conclusion
Adding reCAPTCHA to Contact Form 7 is a simple yet effective way to protect your contact form from spam submissions. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can ensure that your website’s contact form is being used by real human users.