Honeypot Captcha - rated as "cloaked content"?
-
Hi guys,
in order to get rid of our very old-school captcha on our contact form at troteclaser.com, we would like to use a honeypot captcha.
The idea is to add a field that is hidden to human visitors but likely to be filled in by spam-bots. In this way we can sort our all those spam contact requests.
More details on "honeypot captchas":
http://haacked.com/archive/2007/09/11/honeypot-captcha.aspxAny idea if this single cloaked field will have negative SEO-impacts? Or is there another alternative to keep out those spam-bots?
Greets from Austria,
Thomas -
Just in case anyone stumbles across this topic:
We started using honeypot captchas in 2011 and it really paid off. Not only because we got rid of the old captchas, but also because they are keeping out 99,99% of all bot inquiries or spam.
-
Hey Casey,
Thanks for the reply. Will have this tested soon. Really looking forward to getting rid of that captcha.
Regards,
Thomas
-
Hi Thomas,
I've done some studies on this and you will be fine using this technique and Google won't give you any problems doing it. Check out my post on the Honeypot Technique, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/captchas-affect-on-conversion-rates. The technique works quite well blocking about 98% of SPAM.
Casey
-
Hi Keri,
Those are users without Java-Support.
Does that mean that Java Script is no issue then? -
Thomas, double-check if that stat is for users without Java, or users without javascript.
-
Good point, thanks.
As 15% of our visitors don't have Java, this won't work out
Actually we're trying to get rid of the captcha to increase our CR, that's why the "honeypot" version is very appealing.
-
You won't get any SEO impact, think about it for all the form with JS interaction on big sites
One easy solution is to use ajax post of the form only, very effective BUT you won't be able to get contact from visitors without javascript enabled. Maybe a good alternative.
Otherwise, you can use Recaptcha : http://www.google.com/recaptcha
This is free and easy to setup, works well with bots and access to everyone !
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Search Console "Text too small to read" Errors
What are the guidelines / best practices for clearing these errors? Google has some pretty vague documentation on how to handle this sort of error. User behavior metrics in GA are pretty much in line with desktop usage and don't show anything concerning Any input is appreciated! Thanks m3F3uOI
Technical SEO | | Digital_Reach2 -
"Cookies are required to access this site" in Google Serp?
One of my clients is having an issue where their Google search result title and description are just showing "Cookies are required to access this site." instead of the actual meta values. The problem is only in Google as Yahoo and Bing seem to be fine. You can see in the image below or by running a search your self for "be well bodyworks longmont" I've never seen anything like it and couldn't find any reference to anyone else having this issue... I would very much appreciate any insight as to what is going on. Thanks! c5PGL
Technical SEO | | CampfireDigital0 -
Robots.txt - "File does not appear to be valid"
Good afternoon Mozzers! I've got a weird problem with one of the sites I'm dealing with. For some reason, one of the developers changed the robots.txt file to disavow every site on the page - not a wise move! To rectify this, we uploaded the new robots.txt file to the domain's root as per Webmaster Tool's instructions. The live file is: User-agent: * (http://www.savistobathrooms.co.uk/robots.txt) I've submitted the new file in Webmaster Tools and it's pulling it through correctly in the editor. However, Webmaster Tools is not happy with it, for some reason. I've attached an image of the error. Does anyone have any ideas? I'm managing another site with the exact same robots.txt file and there are no issues. Cheers, Lewis FNcK2YQ
Technical SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Does my "spam" site affect my other sites on the same IP?
I have a link directory called Liberty Resource Directory. It's the main site on my dedicated IP, all my other sites are Addon domains on top of it. While exploring the new MOZ spam ranking I saw that LRD (Liberty Resource Directory) has a spam score of 9/17 and that Google penalizes 71% of sites with a similar score. Fair enough, thin content, bunch of follow links (there's over 2,000 links by now), no problem. That site isn't for Google, it's for me. Question, does that site (and linking to my own sites on it) negatively affect my other sites on the same IP? If so, by how much? Does a simple noindex fix that potential issues? Bonus: How does one go about going through hundreds of pages with thousands of links, built with raw, plain text HTML to change things to nofollow? =/
Technical SEO | | eglove0 -
Duplicate content question...
I have a high duplicate content issue on my website. However, I'm not sure how to handle or fix this issue. I have 2 different URLs landing to the same page content. http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/vegan/ and http://www.myfitstation.com/tag/raw-food/ .In this situation, I cannot redirect one URL to the other since in the future I will probably be adding additional posts to either the "vegan" tag or the "raw food tag". What is the solution in this case? Thank you
Technical SEO | | myfitstation0 -
International Websites: rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
Hi people, I keep on reading and reading , but I won't get it... 😉 I mean this page: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077&topic=2370587&ctx=topic On the bottom of the page they say: Step 2: Use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" Update the HTML of each URL in the set by adding a set of rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link elements. Include a rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link for every URL in the set, like this: This markup tells Google's algorithm to consider all of these pages as alternate versions of each other. OK! Each URL needs this markup. BUT: Do i need it exactly as written above, or do I have to put in the complete URL of the site, like: The next question is, what happens exactly in the SERPS when I do it like this (an also with Step1 that I haven't copied here)? Google will display the "canonical"-version of the page, but wehen a user from US clicks he will get on http://en-us.example.com/**page.htm **??? I tried to find other sites which use this method, but I haven't found one. Can someone give me an example.website??? Thank you, thank you very much! André
Technical SEO | | waynestock0 -
Duplicate homepage content
Hi, I recently did a site crawl using seomoz crawl test My homepage seems to have 3 cases of duplicate content.. These are the urls www.example.ie/ www.example..ie/%5B%7E19%7E%5D www.example..ie/index.htm Does anyone have any advise on this? What impact does this have on my seo?
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0 -
"To keyword or not to keyword" in the URL string?
We are debating on whether to use primary keywords in the URL for every page for a new client for the sake of SEO. What is the feeling in the Community on which version is smarter? Version 1: www.abccompany.com/miami-moving-company/about-us www.abccompany.com/miami-moving-company/contact-us etc. etc. Version 2: www.abccompany.com/about-us Thank you for your thoughts!
Technical SEO | | theideapeople0