May 28, 2009
Are CAPTCHAs Scaring Away your Visitors
Have you ever had this experience? You read a great blog post and decided to write out a long, thoughtful comment. Then you arrived at the CAPTCHA, a mangled fuzz of letters. You accidentally entered the letters wrong and bam, your comment was erased and there was no way you were going to write out that comment again! That blogger just lost a new commentator and potentially even a regular reader.
The aim of all SEOs, online business owners, and bloggers is to attract quality traffic to their sites and increase conversions. But many websites feature CAPTCHAs (Completely Automatic Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to prevent spam. In solving one problem, are webmasters creating another?
The CAPTCHA Debate
Nowadays CAPTCHAs are so common that many people don’t even think twice about commenting on a blog or registering for a forum if there is a CAPTCHA. However, sometimes the CAPTCHAS can be near impossible to decipher and if a visitor doesn’t get it right the first time around, they are most likely not going to stick around to try a second or third time. So it’s possible that webmasters, bloggers, and marketers are losing business because they are making it harder for their prospects and clients to make contact.
The key to increasing sales conversions online is making it easier for people to convert but CAPTCHAs certainly aren’t helping in that regard. Nonetheless, there are several benefits to using CAPTCHAs. Not only does it help you get rid of spam, it deters commentators who aren’t serious about making a valid contribution to discussions going on in the comment section of your blog or wherever else.
CAPTCHAS: The Epitome of User-Unfriendly
The usability/accessibility of your website definitely takes a hit when CAPTCHAs are part of the equation. CAPTCHAs make your website visitors pay for the actions of spammers. There are other methods of stopping spam out there such as human moderation and spam comment-blocking services such as Akismet. It might be acceptable to use CAPTCHAs on large websites that require user registration but otherwise webmasters may want to resort to other methods of blocking spam.
One way to look at it is that CAPTCHAs could possibly save you money and help your business. Moderating comments and filtering spam manually can be a very time-consuming process and anyone in this business knows that time is money. As a result, using a CAPTCHA may be a good idea because it will save you time and in the long run, money.
If you absolutely must include CAPTCHAs on your website, avoid the ones that make users identify very obscure text. These CAPTCHAs are difficult to decipher and very frustrating for users, potentially causing you to lose business. Instead, use simple CAPTCHAs such as easy math questions and image identification. The more entertaining and enjoyable the CAPTCHA is the better.
The bottom line is that CAPTCHAs are not user-friendly and if at all possible, they should be avoided. As long as you do away with the difficult CAPTCHAs that make visitors feel as if they are trying to crack the Da Vinci Code, you should be okay but try to apply other spam-blocking methods when you can. Otherwise, your CAPTCHAs could potentially lead to lost sales.
The aim of all SEOs, online business owners, and bloggers is to attract quality traffic to their sites and increase conversions. But many websites feature CAPTCHAs (Completely Automatic Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) to prevent spam. In solving one problem, are webmasters creating another?
The CAPTCHA Debate
Nowadays CAPTCHAs are so common that many people don’t even think twice about commenting on a blog or registering for a forum if there is a CAPTCHA. However, sometimes the CAPTCHAS can be near impossible to decipher and if a visitor doesn’t get it right the first time around, they are most likely not going to stick around to try a second or third time. So it’s possible that webmasters, bloggers, and marketers are losing business because they are making it harder for their prospects and clients to make contact.
The key to increasing sales conversions online is making it easier for people to convert but CAPTCHAs certainly aren’t helping in that regard. Nonetheless, there are several benefits to using CAPTCHAs. Not only does it help you get rid of spam, it deters commentators who aren’t serious about making a valid contribution to discussions going on in the comment section of your blog or wherever else.
CAPTCHAS: The Epitome of User-Unfriendly
The usability/accessibility of your website definitely takes a hit when CAPTCHAs are part of the equation. CAPTCHAs make your website visitors pay for the actions of spammers. There are other methods of stopping spam out there such as human moderation and spam comment-blocking services such as Akismet. It might be acceptable to use CAPTCHAs on large websites that require user registration but otherwise webmasters may want to resort to other methods of blocking spam.
One way to look at it is that CAPTCHAs could possibly save you money and help your business. Moderating comments and filtering spam manually can be a very time-consuming process and anyone in this business knows that time is money. As a result, using a CAPTCHA may be a good idea because it will save you time and in the long run, money.
If you absolutely must include CAPTCHAs on your website, avoid the ones that make users identify very obscure text. These CAPTCHAs are difficult to decipher and very frustrating for users, potentially causing you to lose business. Instead, use simple CAPTCHAs such as easy math questions and image identification. The more entertaining and enjoyable the CAPTCHA is the better.
The bottom line is that CAPTCHAs are not user-friendly and if at all possible, they should be avoided. As long as you do away with the difficult CAPTCHAs that make visitors feel as if they are trying to crack the Da Vinci Code, you should be okay but try to apply other spam-blocking methods when you can. Otherwise, your CAPTCHAs could potentially lead to lost sales.
Labels: blogging, website_development
