Introduction
Google reCAPTCHA is a free application offered by Google to protect Joomla website forms from abuse. This service provides an additional field in the ways to bar abusive activities on your Joomla website.
Since the introduction of the reCAPTCHA API in 2014 by Google, many Joomla website owners have taken advantage of this technology. The application protects your registration and contact form against spam, and enable authentic visitors to confirm they are not robots with just a single click.
This tutorial will help you install and configure reCAPTCHA on your Joomla website to boost security. Implementing reCAPTCHA on your Joomla website is straightforward and should not take much of your time.
Ready? Let us go!
Step 1-Getting Joomla reCAPTCHA
To get Google reCAPTCHA for your Joomla website, visit this page and click the My reCAPTCHA at the top right.
This will take you to this page:
Provide a label plus your domain name then, select an ideal type of reCAPTCHA. Do not worry about subdomains; they are included automatically. Next, accept the Terms of Service and click Register.
This will give you a Secret key and a Site key,
Copy these keys to clipboard, we’ll use them in the next step. But before we proceed, access the Key settings area and amend the credentials where necessary, the click Save Changes.
Step 2- Setting the reCAPTCHA plugin
Login to your Joomla admin area. Got to Extension>Plugins. Under the plugins area, locate the Captcha – ReCaptcha and ensure the plugin is enabled.
Click on Captcha – ReCaptcha. This will take you to a new window:
Set Version to the most recent reCAPTCHA version. Paste the reCAPTCHA keys to their respective area, then click SAVE.
Step 3 – Enabling reCAPTCHA
By now, you reCAPTCHA plugin is set, next is enabling this plugin. Go to System> Global configuration and click Site. This will open the Site Settings.
Our area of interest is the Default Captcha. Set this option to Captcha -ReCaptcha and click Save.
This will introduce reCAPTCHA in your Joomla website registration page.
Step 4 – Using reCAPTCHA to secure Joomla extensions
reCAPTCHA is a powerful application that can also be used to secure some of your Joomla extensions such as DJ Catalog2 and DL Classifieds. This how you accomplish this:
- Go to Components
- Click DJ Classifieds
- Open the Options
- Click Security
DJ Catalog2
Access the Components area and click DJ Catalog2. Go to Options> General tab. The Catcha to Captcha -ReCaptcha.
Conclusion
That’s all, you have successfully installed and configured reCAPTCHA on your Joomla website. You website is now using the advanced risk analysis method of this innovative plugin to thwart abuse and spam. As a result, a good number of valid human visitors on your site will pass the reCAPTCHA test without having to deal with the CAPTCHA challenge.
If you have a Joomla website and are worried about its security, you may want to consider switching to a more renowned and trusted Joomla hosting service. You can find the list of the best Joomla hosting services here on Hostadvice.
Check out these top 3 Joomla hosting services:
- To end your queries about Top web hosting, simply click on this link.
