I’ve been getting a lot of automated spam comments on my blog recently.  Since the comments must be approved before they appear, this hasn’t created a problem for readers, but having to flag a dozen of them as spam every morning is a pain.

A quick look through the plug-in repository for WordPress yielded this little gem: WP-reCAPTCHA.  It integrates the great reCAPTCHA service into WordPress, allowing you to require some or all of your users to fill in the captcha before posting a comment.  A captcha is one of those widgets that requires you to type in the words that you see in a picture.  They usually have wavy lines, circles, etc. to make them hard for a computer to read, but still relatively easy for a human.

I’ve used reCAPTCHA on other sites, and it works nicely.  In addition, it also helps digitize books in the public domain so that classics can be available in digital format.  See their site for details.

If you’ve been getting spam comments on your WordPress blog, give this plug-in a look.  You’ll need to sign up for a reCAPTCHA account, but it’s free and very easy to do.