Do you hate spam but also hate CAPTCHAs? We do, too! Luckily, adding invisible reCAPTCHA to WordPress lets you stop bots without bugging your visitors. Let's show you how.
Approximate read time: 5 minutes
Tell us if this sounds familiar: you're sick of spam form entries, but you're scared adding CAPTCHAs to your WordPress forms will kill conversions.
What's a developer to do? 🤷
Thankfully, invisible reCAPTCHA means you don't have to choose between security, sales, and user experience. It's surprisingly simple to set up and is completely free!
But before we jump into our short step-by-step guide to adding invisible CAPTCHA to your WordPress website, let's clear up a couple points of confusion.
What is CAPTCHA? Is it different from reCAPTCHA & hCAPTCHA?
CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart. 🤖 🧑 reCAPTCHA and hCAPTCHA are based on the same idea but stop spam bots in slightly different ways.
CAPTCHA
This is where it all started. Remember those squiggly, distorted texts you had to type in to prove you weren't a robot? 😵💫 That's CAPTCHA.
The idea was to ask you to solve a puzzle only humans could solve, at least in theory. But as bots became better, this method became less and less effective.
You may still run into CAPTCHA Classic every once in a while on older websites. For the most part, though, it's been replaced by the slicker and smarter reCAPTCHA or hCAPTCHA.
reCAPTCHA
Developed by Google, reCAPTCHA takes the basic idea of CAPTCHA and turns it up a notch. Over the 15+ years since its initial release, several versions of reCAPTCHA have been released.
V1 of Google CAPTCHA used twisty texts before moving on to trickier image identification tests.
reCAPTCHA v2 introduced the famous "I'm not a robot" checkbox and removed the puzzles 🧩, except when requiring an extra check. It also lets you display an invisible reCAPTCHA badge instead, so users don't have to solve a CAPTCHA or tick a box.
Then came reCAPTCHA v3, which is truly invisible. 😶🌫️ How does invisible CAPTCHA work? This kind of spam protection runs in the background, scoring user interactions and mouse movement to detect bots without impacting the user experience.
hCAPTCHA
hCAPTCHA is the new kid on the block. It's a lot like reCAPTCHA, but isn't owned by Google. This privacy-focused spam protection offers more customization too. Plus, hCAPTCHA doesn't track users.
So now that we know more about it, let's see how to add Google's invisible reCAPTCHA option to WordPress forms.
Want a reCaptcha alternative?: 9 Best reCAPTCHA Alternatives To Try Today!
How to add invisible reCAPTCHA to WordPress
For this tutorial, you'll need the Formidable Forms WordPress plugin installed on your website. If you don't have it already, click below to get the free form maker 👇.
Step 1: Get your reCAPTCHA keys
To get started, log in to your Google reCAPTCHA account or create a new, free account. Open the v3 Admin Console and then follow the prompts to register a new site.
Next, choose the type of reCAPTCHA you want, accept the terms of services, and hit Submit.
Once you copy the keys 🔑, you're ready to move on to the next step!
Step 2: Add CAPTCHA keys in WordPress
Back in your WordPress admin panel, go to Formidable → Global Settings.
Paste your Site Key and Secret Key and choose the correct reCAPTCHA type. You can also adjust the reCAPTCHA plugin's threshold, with 1 being the strongest protection and 0 being the weakest.
Click Update when you're done to save your changes. 💾
Way easier than trying to decode the Google reCAPTCHA API, right?
Please note that only one type of reCAPTCHA can be used per site. You cannot use v2 on some forms and v3 on others.
Step 3: Insert the reCAPTCHA field in a form
Now, let's add reCAPTCHA to our WordPress form!
Under Formidable → Forms, you can Edit an existing form or create a new one by clicking the + Add New button.
Next, drag and drop a reCAPTCHA field along with any other fields you want into your form.
All that's left is to save and publish your form.
Bravo! 🙌 You've now installed invisible reCAPTCHA on your WordPress website. Just think of all the contact form spam you've stopped dead in its tracks!
Common invisible reCAPTCHA errors
Even though it's simple to set up, a few things can go wrong with reCAPTCHA. The good news is they're usually quick fixes!
One of the most common problems is how to test invisible CAPTCHA.
When testing a form, you probably submit it multiple times using the same email or IP address. And Google can find this suspicious. As a result, your form may display a reCAPTCHA challenge after you hit the submit button.
This is normal and doesn't mean that your invisible reCAPTCHA isn't invisible! It's just an extra check to prove that you are indeed human despite the unusual activity.
See our documentation for help with other common CAPTCHA problems:
- ERROR for site owner: Invalid domain for site key
- ERROR for site owner: Invalid key type
- reCAPTCHA badge position, visibility
Ready to stop spam with invisible reCAPTCHA for WordPress?
Now you know how easy it is to enable invisible CAPTCHA on WordPress with Formidable Forms, it's time to say bye-bye to bots and hello to smoother spam protection. 👋
So don't let spam get you down — grab the best form and reCAPTCHA plugin below to take the first step towards a safer and more user-friendly website today!
Try the best WordPress form plugin risk-free for 14 days with a 100% money-back guarantee. Get the premium form maker or test the free version of Formidable.
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Yay! The dancing has begun.
Followed the directions above, but Google shows 2 additional steps - a 'client side' code and a 'server side' code - I'm a lowly dude who doesn't know how to do programming code. it appears the forms aren't working with only the directions above...so no dancing for me. any further guidance?
You don't need the client and server code sections... just get the 2 keys from google's page, put them into the formidable "global settings" menu in your wordpress install, and change the dropdown there to "invisible" as the type of recaptcha used.
Did milkboy31's suggestion work for you Mark M?
That is exactly how it should work...
I love the dancing carlton gif. And also the new possibility!
I can't get it to work 🙁
Are you seeing an error message Sandi?
I also followed what seemed to be very simple instructions from Nathanael obtaining my two new Invisible CAPTCHA keys from Google. I had to update Formidable to the latest version to reveal the dropdown selection in Global Settings but then was able to select Invisible from that dropdown. Unfortunately this just didn't work. I get an error 'The captcha is missing from this form'. The Captcha is definitely added to the form as a form element at the bottom but no joy. What else might need to be done to get it to work I wonder?
Hi Don,
Can you open a ticket in our helpdesk? I'd love to get this figured out for you.
Hello,
Same as Don getting the same error ('The captcha is missing from this form'). I purged the cache and now got "The reCAPTCHA was not entered correctly" Instread.
Daveed
Can you open a ticket in our helpdesk please - I'd love to track this down, figure it out & update my instructions accordingly..
Seems that this error is usually do to with the Site Key and Secret Key being off. In my case, I think it was a blank space in addition it's important to clear cache after every change as well.
This is a great feature, thank you Formidable Pro devs
Lovely! Didn't even take up to 2 minutes!
Hello,
Just put it on my site:) How can you check if it's done correctly?
Best Regards,
Pien
Yep - I just checked (and sent a test message) - your site is working perfect with invisible reCaptcha!
Thnaks Nathanael,
But how can I check it myself..when I use it for my customers?
Can I see it in code?
Thanks in advance
Yes - even though reCaptcha is not visible on the page, you can still see it in the code if you look just before the submit button.
Thanks..
just purchased small business licence 🙂
Nice! Went from v2 and now v3 seems to work well, I did have to add another site in my admin console on Google to get this to work with v3. So far so good.
Hi Joe,
Have you tested to make sure that is wrking properly? V3 reCaptcha is not yet supported by Formidable...
I have set the Site and Private captcha numbers to v2 Invisable in Google and copied and pasted them to the Global reCaptcha settings in the free version of the Formidable Forms. Type is set to Invisable and Browser to Default.
I continue to see "The captcha is missing from this form" when I try to test the form. I have cleared the cache as well. Using Chrome on a Mac.
Can you please open a ticket in our helpdesk about this issue: https://formidableforms.com/new-topic/
This solved the problem of Captcha not working on Google Chrome! What a life saver and yeah I did the dance!