CAPTCHA, as you know is usually used to confirm that a form was submitted by a human, not a robot. It is a technique used by computers to tell whether it is interacting with a human or a spam bot. Since computing is becoming widespread, the need for increased levels of online security has resulted in the development of this technique for computers to make sure that they are interacting with real humans. Activities such as web registrations, web polls, search engine submissions and ecommerce transactions are vulnerable to bots or software programs that mimic humans in order to perform malicious activities.
CAPTCHAs have become common. It is one of the ways that companies and bloggers use to combat spam, but they are actually killing your site. Here are the top reasons for not using CAPTCHAs.
Table of Contents
They waste time.
Time is money, the old adage goes. Filling out CAPTCHA may take more than a minute. The images are distorted and the background is too cluttered that even a real human cannot read them. Clicking the “submit” button without typing the captcha takes less than a second.
They are hard to read
It cannot be denied that CAPTCHAs are hard to read. Since technology has advanced, the bots are now capable of reading these CAPTCHAs and pass this security test. For this reason, CAPTCHAs have become even more difficult to read. You may get them wrong multiple times. To anyone suffering from visual impairment, they may not be able to see them properly. Although some come with audio alternatives, they have been proven to be less effective. The main point is that these annoyances drive visitors away from your website and eventually cost you money.
They place a lot of burden on users
They really burden users. They disturb the users with irritating questions. The main problem is that CAPTCHAs force web visitors to complete tasks against their will. They add a lot of friction to their online activities.
You may lose potential followers and commenters
Almost every web user hates CAPTCHAs. Sure, some of them are easy to read and decipher but the fact still remains – no one like them. It is good to protect your site from abuse and spam, but if you are not careful you may lose potential followers and commenters. They are simply not worth it.
What is the solution?
The purpose of CAPTCHAs is to allow access to humans and prevent bots, but they fail to perform either of those roles. Abandoning them is also not the solution. It will only increase the volume of fake traffic to your site. Therefore, it is important use other alternatives such honeypots, audio tests, semantic puzzles, etc. Moreover, rather than using CAPTCHA, you can use the approve comments options. It helps to approve comments before they show up on your site. Check more about CAPTCHA alternatives here.
Conclusion
Yes, spammer bots are a major problem. However, CAPTCHAs are more annoying than spammer bots. They are not perfect and they assume every user is guilty until proven innocent. It is therefore imperative for online businesses to stop using CAPTCHAs in favor of other alternatives.
