Newsletters: Spam – Registration Form

Spam subscriptions/registrations can enter into the WordPress Newsletter plugin as subscribers  only if you have the “Auto Import WordPress Users” setting turned on under Newsletters > Configuration > WordPress Related. If you have this turned off, disregard this documentation.

As a result of having the “Auto Import WordPress Users” setting turned on, the plugin will automatically import all users in your WordPress user database as new subscribers. If you’re getting spam registrations through the WordPress registration form, you’ll end up having spam subscriptions in the Newsletter plugin.

Install WP-reCAPTCHA plugin

To prevent spam registrations through the WordPress registration form, you need to protect the form with a security captcha or human verification of some sort. We recommend using the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin for this.

Get a reCAPTCHA Key

You can get a reCAPTCHA key for your site from Google reCAPTCHA. Simply click “Use reCAPTCHA on your site” and then click “Sign Up Now!” and go through the process of filling in your domain name and that.

Save the public and private key or keep the page open as you’ll use these two values in the next step when configuring the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin with your settings.

Configure WP-reCAPTCHA plugin

Under Settings > WP-reCAPTCHA in the WordPress dashboard you can configure the WP-reCAPTCHA plugin by entering your public key, your private key and under “Registration Options” tick/check the checkbox captioned “Enable for registration form“.