Last updated on February 2, 2021
If you have set up an e-mail contact form on your website, then it won’t take too long before you start getting spam (i.e. unwanted e-mail) in your feedback form. And as time passes by, the bulk of your feedback may contain nothing more but spam. Wondering what has just happened to you? You have become a target of automated scripts called spambots that constantly search the web to find avenues for sending spam. One such avenue is a contact form that is included in almost every website’s contact page.
Fortunately, there is a remarkably useful and easy to implement technique that helps protect your website from spambots called CAPTCHA. It is a simple test that your website visitors need to complete, by entering some weird written words, usually seen in the form of distorted text images before submitting the data. Put it simply, CAPTCHA is a test that helps to tell whether a user is a human or a computer.
However, recent online research showed that computers can solve even highly complex distorted text. And so, merely using distorted text to figure out a user is a human or a spam bot is no longer the most effective strategy. This is why the reCAPTCHA service was developed. Here I don’t mean that CAPTCHA won’t be used anymore, instead what I meant is that reCAPTCHA will prove a better way to determine whether a user is not a robot.
In essence, reCAPTCHA helps users to easily verify they are human and not robots without the need to solve a CAPTCHA; rather it requires one click for confirming that users are not a robot.
reCAPTCHA can be added to a simple blog, a registration form, etc. in the form of a widget. Drawing parallels between CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA is not the agenda of this post. But, we intend to put forth a simple step-by-step process that helps you set up reCAPTCHA within the PHP-Fusion security section of the admin panel. Before diving into details about this process, let us first talk about PHP-Fusion.
An Overview of PHP-Fusion
PHP-Fusion is a lightweight content management system (CMS) that is written in PHP4. It’s open-source in nature and can be set up and configured easily and quickly. PHP-Fusion CMS contains some features that are commonly found in other CMS packages as well including articles, forums, comments, ratings, and a lot more.
PHP-Fusion comes with a few security settings that are built-in to the CMS. These settings help to prevent spammers from making spam entries. For instance, you can make use of the Captcha settings to keep your website registration form or contact form safe from spam, by adding reCAPTCHA. The best part is that setting up reCAPTCHA within your PHP-Fusion is fairly simple, as it comes integrated within its interface.
NOTE: Prior to setting up reCAPTCHA in the PHP-Fusion admin panel, you’ll first have to obtain a key by visiting the page: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/admin#list
How to Add Repcaptcha in PHP-Fusion?
Step 1 – Get logged-in into your PHP-Fusion admin panel.
Step 2 – Once you’ve successfully logged-in into the admin panel, you’ll see administration options as shown in the screenshot below:
Click on the admin panel link and then on the SETTINGS tab.
Step 3 – Click on the Security icon labeled as “Security” as shown below:
Step 3 – Click on the Security icon labeled as “Security” as shown below:
Step 4 – From the “Security Settings” window, at the extreme top, you’ll see a drop-down menu labeled as CAPTCHA. From there, click on the drop-down selection and choose Recaptcha.
And then, you’ll have to paste the Recaptcha Public Key in the field corresponding to the Captcha field. Next, enter the Recaptcha Private Key – that gets generated while creating your Google reCAPTCHA account.
Step 5 – Lastly, click on “SAVE SETTINGS” to save all the entries you have made.
Once you’ve completed the aforementioned process, the reCAPTCHA service will now be added to your PHP-Fusion powered website. For example, the screenshot below shows how the reCAPTCHA service will look like when a new member is registering on your site:
Final Words
One important thing you should know is that PHP-Fusion makes use of Recaptcha mainly for the default contact pages and member registration form. But, in case you want to use it at some other place, then you will have to manually modify the code for the other pages.