Adding reCAPTCHA to Your Contact Form 7 in WordPress

As a WordPress user, it is imperative to include a contact form on your website to enable easy communication with visitors. However, as your website grows, spam messages can clog up your inbox, thus making it challenging to distinguish these messages from real ones. Google’s reCAPTCHA is a free security measure that can protect your website from spam and abuse. It helps differentiate between real users and bots, and it’s a must-have for any website that uses a contact form.

Step 1: Install and Activate the Contact Form 7 Plugin

Contact Form 7 is a free plugin that enables the creation and management of multiple contact forms. It is easy to use and one of the most popular contact form plugins for WordPress.

To install the plugin, navigate to the WordPress dashboard, click on Plugins > Add New, and search for Contact Form 7. Once found, click on Install Now and activate the plugin.

Step 2: Generate Your reCAPTCHA API Keys

To use Google’s reCAPTCHA on your website, you need to generate a pair of API keys for your site.

Navigate to the Google reCAPTCHA website, click on the “Admin Console” button at the top right corner of the screen, create a Google account (if you do not have one), and register your website. After registration, you will receive a Site Key and Secret Key that you copy to your WordPress site.

Step 3: Enable reCAPTCHA in Contact Form 7

Once you have installed the Contact Form 7 plugin and generated your reCAPTCHA API keys, enable the reCAPTCHA feature on your contact form.

Go to your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Contact > Contact Forms, select the contact form you want to add reCAPTCHA to, and select the “Integration” tab. Under the “reCAPTCHA” section, click the “Setup Integration” button, which will take you to the reCAPTCHA configuration page.

On the reCAPTCHA configuration page, select the “reCAPTCHA v3” option, enter your Site Key and Secret Key that you copied earlier, and set the reCAPTCHA threshold. It is advisable to set it to 0.5 or higher. Once entered, click the “Save Changes” button.

Step 4: Add the reCAPTCHA Shortcode to Your Contact Form

After enabling reCAPTCHA in Contact Form 7, the last step is to add the reCAPTCHA shortcode to your contact form.

Go back to your Contact Form 7 form editor and add the reCAPTCHA shortcode to your contact form. You can do this by adding the following shortcode to your form, just before the submit button:

[recaptcha]

Finally, save your changes, and you have successfully added reCAPTCHA to your Contact Form 7 in WordPress.

Conclusion

Adding reCAPTCHA to your Contact Form 7 in WordPress is a simple process that can save you time and hassle in the long run. reCAPTCHA is an excellent security measure that can protect your website from spam and abuse. Follow the steps outlined above, and you’ll be up and running in no time.