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Registration Honeypot

by Justin Tadlock · Uncategorized

Also makes 35 other plugins · 30.8K+ installs across the portfolio →

Plugin for stopping most spambot registrations via a simple honeypot method.

Try it live opens a temporary test site in your browser, which can take about 20 seconds to load. Plugins that rely on outside services or a full server may not work completely there.

⚠ Stale⚠ Likely abandoned⚠ Few reviews

Health

D 43/100

Stale · Likely abandoned · Few reviews

Active installs

300+

≈350 estimated

Momentum

-21%

downloads vs prior 30d

Biggest opportunity: “custom post type”, “restaurant” and “taxonomy” aren't earning a slot. You list them, but you're not in the first 24 results for those searches. WordPress.org counts only your first five tags, so free the slot for a search you can win.

How scoring works →
43 Health · D
Maintenance 3/100
Rating quality 68/100
Support 70/100

43 health vs 58 average across 25,763 Uncategorized plugins

Install conversion

How it's measured →

2.3%

of downloads still active

At least 300 of 13.2K lifetime downloads are still running, above its category: the median Uncategorized plugin keeps 0.6%, across 17,773 plugins.

Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other Uncategorized plugins, not across the directory. wp.org reports active installs as the bottom of a band, so the real rate is this or higher.

High removal-risk signals

63/100

Maintenance and integrity signals that tend to precede a WordPress.org removal. Not an official status, a heads-up to act.

  • Long abandoned. No update in 12+ years — the top precursor to removal once a vulnerability is found.
  • Compatibility drift. Tested only up to WordPress 3.9.40, well behind 6.8.

Details

Version
1.0.0
Last updated
12.5y ago
Added
2014-05-12 · 12 yrs old
Requires WP
3.7
Tested up to
3.9.40
Requires PHP
—

Directory ranking optimization

How it's scored →

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

34 / 100

Under-optimized

Most to gain: Update recency

Update recency 0/100

Updated 4557 days ago, past the ~180 days where wp.org starts discounting

WP compatibility 3/100

Tested up to WordPress 3.9.40; the current branch is 6.8

Rating quality 58/100

3.5★ over 8 reviews, smoothed to 4.02★ and held back under 25 reviews

Listing tuning 84/100

3 of 5 tags set · short description in place

To rank higher: Last updated 4557 days ago — ship an update; wp.org decays a listing's search weight after ~180 days.

Get the full rank-higher report →

Daily downloads

Since 5 Oct 2022 · 1,490 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive

-21% vs prior 30d
112 Nov 2026

30-day downloads

Rolling 30-day volume · peak 388 · peaks are release surges

2512 Nov 2026

Directory rank

Ranked about #10,100 to #11,100, alongside the other plugins at 300+ installs. Plugins with the same install count swap places between wp.org requests, so this is where most of them sit. Checked monthly, last on 1 Nov 2026.

Rating trend

Star average over time · dips mark rough releases

3.52 Nov 2026

Update activity

How busy the existing users are, measured as downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites. A spike means a new release everyone's pulling; a long, slow decline means an aging user base that updates less.

8372 Nov 2026

Release cadence

No release in a year
from wp.org release tags

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

0

releases in the last 12 months

12.5y ago

latest release · v1.0.0 · 12 May 2014

1

tagged releases on record

Recent releases

1.0.0 · 12 May 2014

What its installed base runs

via wordpress.org

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 100% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

v1.0 100%

Estimated active installs

The public count shows “300+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.

tracked estimate
300–400 ≈350

Crossed into this band 9 months ago; a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, which places it about 50% of the way through.

Install history since 18 Sep 2015

3002 Nov 2026

Recent reviews

All reviews on wp.org ↗
  1. ★★★★★ JohnRoyce
    9.3y ago

    UPDATED 12/26/18: Ok, so this plugin author will NOT update his plugin. Contacted him to no avail. I solved the issue myself by deleting the plugin. Maybe the world has moved on, because the spam level is no worse, so it truly seems without worth. Except now I’m not plagued by warnings about the outdated work of a foolish programmer. ORIGINAL REVIEW: It simply works without fanfare, dependably cutting a swath in the advancing line of spam by doing exactly what it purports to do. The plugin comes with the explanation that it does not address every kind of spam, just one very annoying common type. It’s also the easiest plugin possible, you just install and activate. No spam, no premium offers. Just a free service – thank you! Justin Tadlock is a respected programmer, and this quiet little plugin is an example why. Ok sure maybe I wish the plugin was updated more regularly/formally, just for administrative clarity, but the developer seems comfortable there isn’t need for alteration. I trust that is true, and indeed it still works! This topic was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by JohnRoyce. This topic was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by JohnRoyce.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  2. ★★★★★ andygc1
    10.8y ago

    Such a shame. I installed it 6 months ago on WordPress 4.2. Brilliant. Not a single spammer. About 10 days ago the spam registrations returned as much as before. I’ve subsequently got around to upgrading to 4.4.2 so the failure is nothing to do with upgrading WordPress. Somebody has written a honeypot detector.

    Read on wp.org ↗
  3. ★★★★★ henryviii
    11.3y ago

    Tried this as others seem to break my site but this does not work at all. If anything I have been getting more now than I was before

    Read on wp.org ↗
  4. ★★★★★ Hector Cabrera
    11.4y ago

    A must have for sites with open user registrations. Thank you, Justin!

    Read on wp.org ↗
  5. ★★★★★ pazzaglia
    11.8y ago

    I had to disable “Stop Spammer Registrations” plug-in because I added a CDN that showed everyone as coming from the same IP address – therefore rendering the plug-in useless. I immediately began drowning in BOT registrations, getting two or more registrations PER MINUTE onto my website. This is not only a drain on the CPU resources of the shared server my site is hosted on, but it slows down my mailing list of legitimate subscribers quite a bit (as I can only send 1,000 e-mails per hour). Well the moment I enabled this plug-in (an hour ago) the crappy spam registrations stopped. So far so good (hey that’s AT LEAST 120 spam registrations stopped in 60 minutes). Thank you Justin!! Keep up the great work. Ciao, L UPDATE: Three days later, this plug-in still rocks!!

    Read on wp.org ↗
  6. ★★★★★ comarsky
    12.1y ago

    a must have these days

    Read on wp.org ↗
  7. ★★★★★ curiousNST
    12.5y ago

    Works like a charm…problem taken care of instantly. Thank you!

    Read on wp.org ↗
  8. ★★★★★ volresource
    12.5y ago

    I had thought that the spam registration robots hitting my site recently were more sophisticated, but no. Nothing for the last day or so, fingers crossed. Thanks!

    Read on wp.org ↗

AI assistants

How it's measured →

Whether ChatGPT and Claude name this plugin when asked the category question, and whether the readme gives them something to quote.

Not measured yet for this plugin’s topics. Its tracked searches are not among the measured topics. See the topics measured so far.

Readme readiness

4 of 8 pass · checked 30 Oct 2026

Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.

  • ! Says what it does Short description names no action; say what the plugin does for the site.
  • ✓ Has a FAQ 5 questions in the FAQ.
  • ✓ FAQ asks real questions 5 of 5 read like questions a user would type.
  • ✓ Names who it is for Names its audience or use cases ("if you need", "if you want").
  • ! Names what it works with Names no plugin, service or platform it works with.
  • ! Headings and lists 3 headings and 0 lists; assistants quote headed sections and bullet lists, not paragraphs.
  • ✓ Enough to quote 1,321 characters of description.
  • ! Tags match the text Only 0 of 3 tags appear in the text ("custom post type", "restaurant", "taxonomy" missing).

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

  1. 2026-01-29 400+ → 300+ down after 107 days in tier
  2. 2025-10-14 500+ → 400+ down after 1 days in tier
  3. 2025-10-13 400+ → 500+ up after 2 days in tier
  4. 2025-10-11 500+ → 400+ down after 330 days in tier
  5. 2024-11-15 600+ → 500+ down after 464 days in tier
  6. 2023-08-09 700+ → 600+ down after 1 days in tier
  7. 2023-08-08 600+ → 700+ up after 7 days in tier
  8. 2023-08-01 700+ → 600+ down after 1 days in tier

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

Embed this report card

Drop a live Pulse card for Registration Honeypot into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.

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Preview card ↗

Registration Honeypot: 300+ active installs, 3.5★ (8 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-11-02. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/registration-honeypot

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