How to add hCaptcha to WPForms- Complete Set Up

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How to Add hCaptcha in WPForms

Let me begin this article by asking 2 questions

• Are you familiar with the term SPAM?
• If yes, what comes to mind when you think about it?

I’m sure that everyone reading this article is aware of this 4 letter word which is SPAM and it is a known fact that it follows you everywhere.

As far as the second question is concerned, the first few things that comes mind when I think about it are comments and messages.

Think about a scenario where you have just created a new blog and the first thing you see in your inbox is an email that has nothing to do with your site or content.

And the worst part is, if you do not take care of this problem from the beginning then it might get really difficult for you to manage this in the later stages.

As a result of this, you could end up missing out on important information. And you don’t want that.

Now, there are a few different ways to take care of this problem and one of the effective ones is adding hCaptcha to your forms.

And in this article we are going to discuss just that.

What is hCaptcha

Before we dive into hCaptcha, it is important that you understand the meaning of the term that it is derived from which is CAPTCHA.

The term CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test and it is a service that is used to differentiate between humans and bots and hence, it is used to counter spam and block malicious traffic.

While browsing the internet and engaging with sites you might have often come across various types of CAPTCHA’s that asks you to complete certain simple challenges in order to successfully perform an action.

For example, if you have an account on Cloudflare and you want to log in then after entering the credentials you will have to solve a CAPTCHA to successfully login.

Now, it is important to know that Cloudflare migrated from reCaptcha to hCaptcha in Aug 2020 and that is why some of you may be thinking that the CAPTCHA logo in the screenshot is very different from what you regularly encounter on the web. See the below screenshot for reference.

Now that you know what is CAPTCHA, its time we get to know hCaptcha better.

First things first, hCaptcha is a relatively new anti-spam service and is also a very popular reCaptcha alternative owned by Intuition Machines.

hCaptcha works in a very similar manner to its counterpart yet it is very different.

This tool market’s itself as a new revenue stream for websites where the work is done by the visitors by proving their humanity.

In simple words, when visitors complete CAPTCHA challenges on your site, you get paid and at the same time it blocks bots and spam.

In case you are wondering how this works then let me tell you machine learning companies wants humans to answer to simple questions.

These questions are shown to visitors on your site when they take a certain action. For example, if you have enabled hCaptcha on your contact form then when a visitor fills out the form, the questions will be displayed to check if they are human or not.

This creates labeled data that can be used by the machine learning companies.

And with this process everyone benefits- websites get paid, visitors get to access sites with less spam, machine learning companies get faster and have cheaper labels.

Also, there is another benefit of using hCaptcha and that is privacy.

Now, if you visit hCaptcha’s website you will see everything has been mentioned very clearly regarding them supporting initiatives like Privacy Pass to them paying you for using the service.

On top of all of this hCaptcha is also compatible with regulations such as GDPR and CCPA.

In case you are concerned about the privacy issues and want to try a different anti-spam and bot tool then hCaptcha is for you.

And as mentioned before, this service is completely free. So why not give it a try.

Now that you are familiar with hCaptcha and what it does, its time we discuss

How to use hCaptcha in WPForms

WordPress is the most popular CMS that powers around 39% of the web and yet it does come with a built-in form functionality.

This means if you want to add any type of form to your website then you will have to use a plugin like WPForms.

WPForms is a very popular form builder plugin using which you can create any type of form for your WordPress site.

Being a popular plugin, WPForms has over 4 million active installations with 4.9 out of 5 star rating on WordPress.org.

Now, before we move forward it is important to know WPForms is a freemium plugin and that means it is available in both free and premium versions.

And you can add hCaptcha to forms created by both the versions of WPForms easily.

In case you are looking for a form builder plugin then I will definitely recommend giving this plugin a try and using our special WPForms coupon code, you can get an instant 50% discount. Also, it is on list of must-have plugins.

For this tutorial, we will be using the free version of WPForms and in case you have not installed the plugin yet then the first step is to

Install WPForms

To install WPForms on your site, the first step is to login to your WordPress dashboard and then navigate to Plugins and click Add New.

Doing this will take you to the free WordPress plugin repository and there you need to search for WPForms.

Once you find the plugin, all you have to do is click Install Now and then click Activate.

And that’s it you have successfully installed the plugin.

Create an account on hCaptcha

Now that you have installed the WPForms plugin, the next step is to create an account on hCaptcha.

And for that you need to visit hCaptcha.com and click the sign up button in the middle of your screen or on the top right.

Doing this will take you to a new page where you need to select a service offered by hCaptcha.

As we are integrating hCaptcha with WPForms plugin, you need to select “Add hCaptcha for publishers to my website or App”.

When you select this option, it will take you to the hCaptcha sign up page where you can create an account using any of the services mentioned below

• Github
• Google
• Any other email

Generate hCaptcha SiteKey

Once you have created an account and successfully logged in, it will take you to the hCaptcha dashboard and here you need to click New Site button on the top right.

And it will take you to a new page where the first setting you will come across is the name and purpose of this SiteKey.

You can edit it by clicking the Pencil / Edit icon.

As you can see this an optional setting and is only used for the purpose of management.

The next setting that you will encounter is hostnames.

Here you need to add the domain name of the site where you will be activating the hCaptcha key.

Keep in mind, you don’t have to http or https here. You are only required to add the domain name.

For example, to activate hCaptcha on Blogging Unplugged, I will be adding bloggingunplugged.com in the space provided as shown in the screenshot above.

In case you include the protocol then it will automatically remove it when adding.

Once you are done adding the hostname, click Add new domain button right next to it and it will add your site to hCaptcha.

Now, if you want to add multiple websites then you can do that as well and it will create a list of site for you.

After this, the next setting you will see is Captcha Difficulty. As the name suggests, this option lets you choose the difficulty level of the captcha on forms.

There are 4 levels in this setting

• Easy
• Moderate
• Difficult
• Always On

In case you are wondering what happens if you increase or decrease the difficulty level then let me tell you, these difficulty levels decide how often the captcha will be show to the users.

By default, it is set to moderate and you can change it depending on your requirements.

The last and final setting on the list is Filter Captchas by audience interest and using this, you can set what type of images or content will be shown to the visitors in Captcha.

To select interest all you have to do is click the drop down and it will show various options to choose from. You can pick up to 3 based on the interest of your audience.

Once you are done till here, you need to click Save and doing this will take you to the Sites page where your hCapcha SiteKeys will be listed.

Now that you have successfully generated the SiteKey, the next step is to.

Add hCaptcha SiteKey in WPForms

To add hCaptcha SiteKey in WPForms, the step is to see the complete SiteKey for the website and for that you need to click Settings under features in the hCaptcha dashboard.

Doing this will take you to the settings of the website and here you can see the SiteKey for your blog or website.

Now, you need to copy this key and go to your WordPress dashboard. Once there you need to navigate to WPForms and then click Settings.

Under form settings, you will be able to locate hCaptcha under CAPTCHA tab.

Once here you need to select hCaptcha and it will show you all the related settings

As you can see the first setting requires you to add the SiteKey that you have generated in hCaptcha moments ago.

Just copy the SiteKey from hCaptcha dashboard and paste it in the box.

The next option you will come across is the Secret Key and you will find this key under settings on hCaptcha.

Once you find the secret key copy it and paste it in the space provided in hCaptcha settings in WPForms.

After adding the hCaptcha secret key, the next option you will see is the Fail Message.

This message will be shown to the visitors who fail the verification process. To change the fail message, all you have to do is delete the default message and type in a new one.

The next setting that you will see here is No Conflict Mode.

In case your site has multiple occurrences of CAPTCHA then there are chances that hCaptcha might not work as expected.

In this situation, you can enable this option and it will remove all the CAPTCHA’s from being loaded on the page.

Now, it is highly recommended that you contact WPForms support before activating this option.

The last and final option in WPForms hCaptcha settings is Preview.

And as the name suggests, it will show you how the hCaptcha will look on the front end.

Also, if it is not configured properly then it will display an error message. In most cases it will be due to incorrect keys.

Once you are done till here, all you have to do is click Save settings button.

And that’s it you have successfully connected your WPForms plugin to hCaptcha.

How to add hCaptcha to a form created using WPForms

Adding hCaptcha to any form created using WPForms is vey easy. For this all you have to do is either create a new form or edit an existing one.

You can find all the forms you have created under All Forms in WPForms.

Once here you need to click Edit under the form that you want to protect using hCaptcha.

Doing this will take you to the WPForms form builder and here under standard fields you will see the option to add hCaptcha field.

Now, all you have to do is click the hCaptcha field and a popup will appear with the message “hCaptcha has been enabled for this form”.

Once you get this mesaage, click the OK button on the popup and you will see a small hCaptcha logo on top right of the form with the status message enabled.

And that’s it you have successfully integrated hCaptcha with WPForms. Now, before exiting WPForms form builder make sure you save the form.

Once you are done till here, the next step is to test the form and see if the hCaptcha is working as expected.

For this you need to go to the page where you have embedded this form.

And once there try sending yourself an email and see if the hCaptcha works or not.

If hCaptcha is working as expected then change the device and perform the same procedure again.

In case there is s problem then you will have to fix it and test it again.

How to disable hCaptcha in WPForms

Now that you know how to enable hCaptcha in WPForms, it is equally important to know how to deactivate it.

For disabling hCaptcha in WPforms, you need to first edit the form with working hCaptcha and it will take you to the form builder.

Once there, you need to click Settings in the sidebar.

And doing this will take you to General settings where you will have to scroll down a bit and you will see an option to enable / disable hCaptcha.

If this option is checked then you can uncheck it and then save the settings. It will deactivate hCaptcha on this form.

After this when you will go back to the form you will notice the hCaptcha logo on the form missing.

Also, on visiting the page with the form you will find that the hCaptcha field is missing.

And that’s it now you know how to disable hCaptcha in WPForms easily.

Having said that,

• How to connect WPForms and SendinBlue easily
• How to connect WPForms with Zapier
• How to install and configure Mailchimp Addon in WPForms
• How to hide pins in WordPress
• How to install Elementor Pro plugin

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful and are able to easily add hCaptcha to WPForms and set it up correctly.

In case you have any queries feel free to reach out via comment section. Also, don’t forget to share this tutorial with your friends on social media.

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