Episode I: How to remove word verification (annoying captchas)
A not so long time ago, word verification on blogger was simple, easy to read words that you would type then click submit and voila your comment was posted. Easy peasy. Earlier this year blogger changed the word verification captchas to random, illegible letters and blurry pictures of numbers that leave me banging my head on my computer trying to decipher. Many people have become so discouraged that they've stopped commenting on blogs that use verification.
You may not even realize that your blog is the source of your reader's aggravation; when blogger rolled out the new word verification version, the default was for the captchas (Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) to be on "YES".
To show appreciation to your readers, you can disable word verification by going toSettings > Posts and comments > Show word verification? and select No
To encourage more people to comment, make sure you have "Who can comment?" set to "Anyone - includes Anonymous Users"
What about spam? In all honesty I get only a couple of spam comments per MONTH. And most of those are automatically removed by blogger so when I go to delete them, they are already gone. I've found that most spammers seem to target older posts, so I switched to only approve comments on posts older than 20 days, and haven't been getting much spam since.
Under "Comment Moderation?" select "Sometimes" and add the number of days and email address to send requests to. If you start getting spam, change the number lower and see if that helps. I haven't figured out why yet, but if you do get a lot of spam like Shelly, change it to "Always" and you can keep tabs on all comments.
Make sure you click the orange "Save settings" button in the upper right, so your improved options will update benefitting your blog and your readers.
Happy blogging! (see all Pimp my blog posts)
Posts
One word...Hurrah!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your rant, it inspired me to start this series. :D
DeleteThanks for setting this out so clearly, including the history!
ReplyDeleteI don't mind so much having my comments on other blogs approved before they're published - and when I changed my settings earlier today (after being reminded by Pepper's post!) I kept comment moderation at Always. I guess I'll see how it goes - I've been blogging so infrequently, the comments I've received have been more numerous than my posts even with word verification!
I don't mind comment moderation either, leaving it at "Always" is great way to prevent spam. I'm just too lazy (busy) to moderate comments so using "Sometimes" saves me the time of approving the real comments, and knock on wood, the current spam-blocker has been filtering out the junk for me. :D
Deletefinally ...!
ReplyDeleteI was getting quite sick of those things. thank you!
I got sick of it long ago and dropped it- but you told everyone how! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteNeomi
Much appreciated Neomi!!
DeleteI don't use verification, but I do moderate comments on most of my blogs, except for one which does not allow anonymous commenting. I don't get an overwhelming amount of spam, but a couple of them get spam comments daily and the built-in spam blocker doesn't catch them all. I moderate comments so the comments with links that likely would take someone to malware don't appear. I moderate to protect my visitors.
ReplyDeleteThanks Shelly. Keeping the comment moderation on "Always" is a great way to go if you get lots of spam. I'm not sure why some blogs get targeted for spam, I think it may have to do with the popularity of content. Ugh! Not sure why, it would be great if blogger/google could do a better job of blocking all spam.
DeleteGracias por esta campaña en favor de los comentarios y de la amistad entre los blogs!
ReplyDeleteUn abrazo
GRACIAS por no tener palabra de verificación