Comments and CAPTCHA

We all love to receive comments, but unfortunately, spammers know that, and they often flood our blogs with spam that is thinly disguised as a comment, but is actually designed to advertise their websites. One way to avoid spam is by implementing word verification. A person who comments must solve a CAPTCHA before the comment will publish.

Most of us don't do that because it is a nuisance to our readers. In Blogger, the spam filters are very good at detecting spam comments, and Blogger puts these comments into the Spam folder before they ever reach your posts.

However, there has been a change at Blogger HQ. In order to thwart the spammers more severely, a new rule has been enforced. The new rule only impacts readers who wish to leave a comment anonymously. Here is what happens.

A person with a Google account who leaves a comment while logged on to that account will see this.

The reader enters a comment which is published with no further fuss.



If, on the other hand, the potential commenter chooses to comment anonymously:

that reader will then be presented with a CAPTCHA to solve.

But it doesn't happen every time. If you have a Google account and are logged on to that account, then choose to post an anonymous comment, you won't see the CAPTCHA. If you don't have a Google account, or have one but are not logged on to it, you will see the CAPTCHA.

Got it? The confusing part is that this happens regardless of whether or not the blog owner has word verification turned on. So if anyone tries to leave an anonymous comment on this blog and runs up against two illegible words, it isn't my doing. Blame Blogger and Google!