Reducing spammy user sign-ups

Question

After following the advice in a previous question (here) I've managed to nuke my spam comments. I now, however, find that every day I have a few new members sign up to the site with rubbish e-mail addresses like 7428174812@aweseome-jewlery.co.uk. I could close sign-ups but I'd rather not as I'm hoping the site will beceome a bit more popular and would like to encourage comments.

Answer 1

I have been using Recaptcha which has the added benefit of helping to translate literature. (!)The plugin linked above will add Re-Captcha to your comments or registration form or both. It also has features like themes for the captcha forms. Definitely worth looking into.

Answer 2

Yes.

The easiest way would be to include a Captcha on your registration page. Most Captcha systems depend on the user's ability to read a word or answer a question (i.e. "What is 2+3?"). Automated systems like these spam bots have trouble with Captchas, but they're by no means perfect.

However, I discovered today a Captcha plug-in that protects the registration page that requires the use to drag color-coded elements onto specific portions of the screen: KeyCAPTCHA.

This might help. But any spam bot deterrent is better than none.

Answer 3

I would recommend Block Spam By Math Reloaded for the following reasons.

• There is no registration to a third party site (which always worries me because if they pull the service you could be left with broken forms).
• It has a decent score on the Wordpress site, I find the community scores to be generally quite good at highlighting good/bad plugins.
• Superfast to install and set up.
• Can be used to stop comment/login/signup/form spam
• It has been updated this month (July 2011) so it at the moment at least in current development