If you’ve been commenting on Blogger hosted blogs recently, you may have been cursing the unreadable word verification codes, also known as CAPTCHA. You can make life so much easier for your potential commentators by turning it off. No, you will not be flooded by spam. Google’s spam filter does a great job, if you are targeted. I have had my word verification turned off since my second month of blogging and I get a few comments in the spam folder but not many and they don’t show up on the blog.
The problem is, the new Blogger dashboard (the white and orange one) doesn’t include the option to turn them off. If you go to the little gear wheel on the top right of your dashboard you can revert to the old dashboard (blue and orange colour scheme). There will be an option in the Settings > Comments section to turn off word verification. Once done, switch back to the new dashboard and Bob’s your uncle (he is, actually, mine).
Whilst you’re at it, you might want to submit feedback on the new look dashboard that the setting is missing. If enough people complain maybe they’ll do something about it! There should be a send feedback button on the bottom right.
CAPTCHAs have their place but not for blogs. They should be used to stop bots hitting websites where information could be gained by repeated form submissions (insurance quotes for instance). If you really feel the need to have them, consider a third party comment plugin that has a picture “puzzle” to prove you’re human.
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Thanks for this. I'm putting it in my Clock Rewinders post this weekend. 🙂
Amen to that! Word verifications and captchas are an absolute pain. I comment on a huge amount of blogs throughout the week and it can be really time-consuming trying to work out the silly words!
CJ
I so agree. I have so much trouble with capchas on other blogs. I've never used it and I really get no spam.
I agree! I loathe CAPTCHA.
CAPTCHA pisses me off to no end! I had it off on my blog since the beginning and had maybe couple of spam comments in almost a year of blogging. The worst blogs are those that have captcha and comments visible only after approval. What's the point? *sigh* great topic, Ellie! Blogger has been much trouble for me recently. I can't get gfc widget to show up and reply to comments option doesn't work for me as well. Complaining hasn't change the situation either…
Thanks for this, had no idea I could turn it off and have now done so 😀
Lainy http://www.alwaysreading.net
How about turning it off for new email followers? I can't figure out how to do this. Help!
This is a bit out of date as they've changed the "new" blogger dashboard. However, I didn't think Blogger offered direct email subscriptions? I use Feedburner for this so can't really help. As subscribing is a one off action, it's probably less annoying having to fill in a CAPTCHA for that than commenting.
If you mean the subscribe to comments option, I think that uses the same settings as your comments.