Want to prevent spam registrations and bot attacks on your WordPress site? Adding CAPTCHA to your registration and login forms is an effective solution.
This guide will show you how to easily implement CAPTCHA using the User Registration & Membership plugin, which supports reCAPTCHA v2, reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile.
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What is CAPTCHA? Why Add it to the Registration and Login Forms?
CAPTCHA, which stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart,” is a tool to distinguish humans from bots.
It analyzes user interactions, and its functionality varies by type. Popular CAPTCHA options include:
reCAPTCHA v2: Users tick a checkbox or solve image challenges to prove they’re human.
reCAPTCHA v3: Works in the background, analyzing user behavior and generating a score to determine if the user is human.
hCaptcha: Similar to reCAPTCHA but prioritizes user privacy by not selling data to third parties.
By adding CAPTCHA to registration and login forms, you can:
- Block spam registrations, ensuring only genuine users sign up.
- Prevent bots from spamming comments and reviews.
- Protect user accounts from malicious login attempts.
Given all these benefits, it’s wise to place CAPTCHAs in registration and login forms.
How to Add CAPTCHA to WordPress Registration & Login Form?
A good WordPress registration plugin, like User Registration & Membership, offers multiple CAPTCHA options to suit your needs and audience preferences.
It’s a brilliant registration form builder plugin with multiple CAPTCHA options. Also, its drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to build registration forms with as many custom fields as you wish.
While at it, we’ll also show you how to create a custom registration form to add the CAPTCHA.
Step 1: Install and Activate the User Registration & Membership Plugin
First, you must install and activate the free User Registration & Membership plugin on your website.
To do this, log into your WordPress dashboard and open Plugins >> Add New. Please search for the plugin and click the Install Now button once it appears in the search results.
After that, Activate the plugin.
You’ll now see a welcome page that lets you either Skip to Dashboard, Get Started to set up the plugin or Create a First Form directly.
No matter which path you decide to take, make sure you’ve turned on the Membership option.
If you continue the setup process, you’ll see the Anyone can register option in the General tab. It’s turned on by default, so keep it as it is and hit Next to proceed with the rest of the setup.
If you’ve already exited from the welcome page to the dashboard, open Settings >> General. Here, tick the checkbox for Anyone can register and click Save Changes.
This step is essential because only when you enable user registration, your users be able to access the registration form in the frontend and register themselves.
Once you’ve done that, you can move on to the next step.
Step 2: Create a New User Registration & Membership Form
Now, navigate to User Registration & Membership >> Add New to create a new form. Now, you can use the pre-built form templates or create a new one from scratch.
Proceed on by giving your form a clear name.
You’ll find all the required fields for a custom registration form on the left. To add these fields to the form on the right, you just need to drag and drop them.
Thus, you can add any other field you need to the form.
Here’s a complete guide to creating a user registration form in WordPress using the User Registration & Membership plugin.
When the form is ready, click Create Form or Publish form. And there you have it! A simple registration form in a few quick steps.
Step 3: Generate Site and Secret Keys for CAPTCHA
With the form created, it’s time to add the CAPTCHA. To do this, go to User Registration & Membership >> Settings >> Captcha.
Under the CAPTCHA option, you’ll see that the plugin offers four types of CAPTCHAs: reCAPTCHA v2, reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha, and Cloudflare Turnstile.
Regardless of which type you choose, you’ll need the Site Key and Secret Key to activate the CAPTCHA. Don’t know how to get the keys?
In this section, we will show you how to get a site and secret keys for all the CAPTCHA types available with User Registration & Membership. You can use any one of them:
A. reCAPTCHA Site Key and Secret Key
First, click on the dropdown icon of reCAPTCHA v2. You’ll see the options to enable reCAPTCHA v2 and place to enter the site and secret keys.
So, visit the official Google reCAPTCHA page.
Click the v3 Admin Console menu in the header and log into your Google account.
After that, you’ll be taken to the Create page to register a new site. This should be the site where you want to integrate the CAPTCHAs.
Type your website’s name in the Label and choose the reCAPTCHA type between v2 and v3.
Choosing v2 comes with 3 more options:
- “I’m not a robot” Checkbox
- Invisible reCAPTCHA badge
- reCAPTCHA Android
After choosing the type of reCAPTCHA, add your site’s domain, accept the reCAPTCHA Terms of Service and click on the Submit button.
That’s it! Your site is now registered for Google reCAPTCHA.
All that’s left to do is copy the Site Key and Secret Key for later use.
You’ll need them to integrate the CAPTCHA into your forms.
B. hCaptcha Site Key and Secret Key
Similar to reCAPTCHA, go to the official hCaptcha page. Next, open the sign-up page by pressing the Sign Up button.
hCaptcha offers several types of plans to companies and individuals. For now, choose the free service for your website.
Then, create a new account and get your Site Key and Secret Key.
C. Cloudflare Turnstile Site Key and Secret Key
For the Cloudflare Turnstile site key and secret key, visit its official website and sign up for free using your email address.
Now, navigate to Turnstile >> Add widget.
Next, enter your website’s Widget name and Domain and hit the Create button.
You’ll now get the Site Key and Secret Key from Cloudflare Turnstile.
Copy and keep them safe.
Step 4: Enable reCAPTCHA v2, v3, hCaptcha or Cloudflare Turnstile
Now that you have the keys, go back to your WordPress dashboard >> User Registration & Membership>> Settings >> Captcha.
Based on your preference for CAPTCHA, please enable it and paste the site and secret keys.
reCAPTCHA v2
If you’re adding reCAPTCHA v2, paste the Site Key and Secret Key you generated for reCAPTCHA v2.
You can also make the CAPTCHA invisible. Finally, hit the Save Changes at the bottom.
reCAPTCHA v3
If you want to add reCAPTCHA v3 to your form, enable reCAPTCHA v3 and paste the Site Key and Secret Key. Then, set the Threshold score for validating requests.
Here, the default is 0.4, meaning users who get 4 out of 10 total scores are validated as genuine users. You can increase the Threshold score to ensure a strict user evaluation.
hCaptcha
Next, for hCaptcha, enable HCaptcha and paste the keys you generated from your hCaptcha account.
Cloudflare Turnstile
Similarly, if you want to add Cloudflare Turnstile, enable it and paste the site and secret keys.
Don’t forget to Save Changes at the end.
Note: You can enable all four CAPTCHAs and use anyone in the registration and login form later.
Let’s proceed to add them to your registration and login forms.
Step 5: Enable CAPTCHA in the Registration Form
Just integrating reCAPTCHA with User Registration & Membership isn’t enough. You still need to enable CAPTCHA support for the registration form on your WordPress website.
So, open the custom registration form you created earlier and go to its Form Setting. Scroll down the General tab to see the Enable Captcha Support option.
Toggle it and choose the configured captcha. Next, click Update form at the top of the builder.
Note: If you enable all four CAPTCHAs, you’ll see all the options in the dropdown. Meanwhile, we have only enabled reCAPTCHA v2, so this option is only displayed in the image above.
Your registration form will now display CAPTCHA depending on the type of CAPTCHA you’ve enabled in the previous steps.
Step 6: Enable CAPTCHA in Login Form
Since User Registration & Membership already comes with an in-built login form, you don’t have to create another one from scratch.
Simply navigate to User Registration & Membership >> All Forms and open the Login Forms.
Next, go to User Registration & Membership >> Settings and open the Login Options under the General tab.
Here, tick the Enable Captcha checkbox and save the changes. This should add the CAPTCHA verification to your site’s login form.
Wrapping Up
We hope you have mastered adding CAPTCHA to your WordPress registration and login form using the User Registration & Membership plugin.
With its four CAPTCHA options, you can significantly reduce spam registrations and bot attacks.
Moreover, you can also use this incredible plugin to enable strong passwords, assign user roles at registration, and let admins approve users after registration.
Learn more about User Registration & Membership through our blog, where we’ve covered its various features and how you can implement them for your site.
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