If you hold an internet site and have to maintain it yourself then you know that there are always some unexpected troubles you have to take care of in order to run a clean website. One of these inconveniences nowadays is caused by bots, the so-called web crawlers…
I don’t want to bore the reader with my technical terms so I’m going to go into the matter in normal jargon:
It happens that some users seem to register on your system. If you’re a beginner in web site activities you might welcome the new registrations, but if you take a closer look you’ll notice the not very intelligent usernames and unrealistic email addresses such as ‘spamavert.com’ or ‘exnik.com’. These are not real users, they are bots.
Disadvantage is that bots try to create accounts in order to insert malicious code in case of a wrong configuration (user right “Administrator” in connection with “anyone can register”).
A workaround against a registration by bots would be to secure the registration with a Google reCAPTCHA!
Everyone of us knows this: the ” I am not a robot” dialog when registering on a Website. As registering users we may be annoyed by these dialogs, but if you are running a website where registration is offered, then reCAPTCHA is a must.
Google tells you exactly how this can be done.
It is also important to note that in your settings, you only assign the role ‘Subscriber’ but never the role Administrator.
So much internet gibberish for the dear readers today. Then I’ll end it now.
by Niki Nazemi