Contact Forms Spam: what can you do to stop the spams into your contact forms? Is there anything you can do to resolve this problem?

Furthermore how to know which one are spams and which one are real leads?

Well, there is a simple way to handle this problem, merely using a contact form plugin that lets you correctly do that.

WPFORMS anti spam

Contents

WHAT IS CONTACT FORM SPAM?

Contact form spam is a way for software or humans to find in the web, places or forms, where to insert fake messages, mainly with a link so that they can gain traffic to their websites or backlinks.

Some of those programs can also steal your emails or other website info.

It is not uncommon that you may find tons of comments to some of your post that are clearly spam, form submission and direct e-mails ( if you leave your e-mail address info in your site ) filled with weird a fake messages.

It is imperative to find a way to stop this so you can filter through it and actually work.

I give you an example of someone sending spam through my contact form:

Contact form spam example

I recently received this mail three times, with a link. Obviously, they want me to click on it. The message has no meaning if you read it, and it is not related to anything I am doing.

How to make it stop?

USING reCAPTCHA

reCAPTCHA is a free service that protects your website from spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA uses an advanced risk analysis engine and adaptive challenges to keep automated software from engaging in abusive activities on your site. It does this while letting your valid users pass through with ease.

This service is owned by Google.

How to simply add this to your site without coding or complication?

Using WPForms. WPForms is the best contact form plugin, with over 3+ million installations. It is user friendly and nicely designed. With WPForm you can simply add reCaptcha to your form in few clicks.

WHY reCAPTCHA?

The concept behind CAPTCHA was to protect websites against spam by generating tests for users to answer before being able to submit an online form. This was the original idea.

The CAPTCHA became reCaptcha to make it more user friendly, less complicated and easy to follow for users.

Instead of having to input text or answer a question, visitors only have to click a button to identify themselves as a human so they can submit their form.

Recaptcha

This is the most used anti spam method, it has gotten better through the year and therefore we are going to show you how to add this system to your form.

HOW TO ADD reCAPTCHA WITH WPFORMS

Let’s see what are now the steps in adding spam protection to your form.

DOWNLOAD AND ACTIVATE WPFOMRS

The first step is to download and activate WPForms. You have spam protection starting with the Basic Plan.

CREATE YOUR FIRST FORM

After activating WPForms, you can now create your first form. Once your form is created, you can decide how to add the reCaptcha.

simple-contact-form-on-wpforms

There are different options to choose from after this:

  1. Using Google reCaptcha, via WPForms Settings
  2. Using reCaptcha add-on from WPForms

While WPForms comes with Google reCAPTCHA, some users prefer to use their custom questions as CAPTCHA. WPForms custom captcha addon allows you to specify your questions and answers as Captcha.

We are going to set up the custom add-on.

USE THE WPFORMS CUSTOM CAPTCHA ADD-ON

Now, scroll down and click on the Captcha button to activate the Custom Captcha add-on.

activate-captcha-button

A window will pop up — click Yes, Install and Activate.

install-and-activate-captcha-addon

After the installation is complete, click Yes, Save and Refresh.

save-and-refresh-catpcha-addon

Your Custom Captcha add-on is now active and ready to be added to your form.

Add and Customize the Captcha Form Field

Now, stay in the form builder to add your custom captcha form field. Just drag it from the left-hand panel to the right-hand panel to add it to your form.

wpforms

The form field will automatically display a random math question for site visitors to answer before they can submit their form on your site. A new math problem (addition, subtraction, or multiplication) will appear every time the page loads or refreshes.

edit-captcha

If you prefer to use a custom question and answer instead of the Math Captcha, change the type of captcha to Question and Answer in the Field Options section.

type-of-captcha-change

If you want to display random questions and answers every time your page loads or refreshes, click on the (+) button to add another question and answer.

add-questions-and-answers-to-custom-captcha-

Click Save when you’ve customized your custom captcha to your liking.

wpforms

ADD CONTACT FORM WITH CUSTOM CAPTCHA TO WORDPRESS

To start, create a new post or page in WordPress and then click on the Add WPForms icon inside of a block.

insert-wpforms-into-page-or-post

Next, select your form from the dropdown in the modal popup.

add-custom-captcha

Then, publish your post or page so your contact form will appear on your website.

OTHER OPTIONS

You have other options that can help to stop Contact Forms Spam; for example, use Google reCaptcha. You can set it up via WPForms.

Google reCaptcha

To start, go to WPForms » Settings. Then, click on the reCAPTCHA tab.

recaptcha-settings

Choose Checkbox reCAPTCHA v2 to add an interactive reCAPTCHA box to your contact form. From here, follow the instructions and set up a free reCAPTCHA account with Google.  

It’s free but requires a site key and secret key. You can quickly generate those keys for your site by visiting Google’s reCAPTCHA setup page.

Once you have generated those keys, filled out the field here:

save-recaptcha-settings

ANTI-SPAM HONEYPOT

This is an invisible form made up specifically for spam. The bot or softwares end up filling up this form, which no one sees. So it can be verified it is not a human doing it.

Since it is invisible, doesn’t require users to fill this up, so it is not annoying.

By default, this setting is enabled for all your forms, even if you use other anti-spam strategies such as Google reCAPTCHA or the Custom Captcha add-on.

If you want to double check that it’s activated, you can go to Settings » General.

Then, near the bottom of the right-hand preview panel, you’ll see that the Enable anti-spam honeypot option is selected for you.

Honeypot-Feature

Read also:

Stripe Online Payment Processing with WPForms

Survey Plugin for WordPress | Survey & Polls Add-on By WPForms

WHY CONTACT FORMS

In conclusion, to stop Contact Forms Spam, it is better you use WordPress Forms, and not leave around email addresses on your site. A contact form allows you to enable all the anti-spam features, so you don’t have to worry about it.

But if you are a business and you have to write an e-mail address, you could also write your email in this form, to avoid spam:

Info[at]iamreallife[dot]com instead of info@iamreallife.com

I hope you now know how to stop Contact Forms Spam.

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