Contact and subscription forms are essential for any website that wants to engage with its visitors and generate leads. However, these forms can also attract unwanted and malicious submissions from spammers and bots. These spam submissions can clutter your database, waste your resources, damage your reputation, and even compromise your security.
Fortunately, there are many tools and techniques that you can use to prevent spam form submissions and protect your website from these threats. In this blog post, we will review some of the latest tools for stopping contact and subscription form spam and how they work.
CAPTCHAs
CAPTCHAs are one of the most common and effective ways to prevent spam form submissions. CAPTCHAs are challenges that require human intelligence to solve, such as typing distorted text, selecting images, or solving math problems. By adding a CAPTCHA to your form, you can filter out automated bots that cannot pass the test.
There are different types of CAPTCHAs that you can use, such as:
- Google reCAPTCHA: This is a free service that provides various CAPTCHA options, such as reCAPTCHA v2, which asks users to click on a checkbox or select images that match a given description, and reCAPTCHA v3, which uses a score-based system to detect bots without user interaction.
- Invisible reCAPTCHA: This is a variation of reCAPTCHA v2 that does not require any user action. Instead, it uses advanced risk analysis techniques to determine if the user is human or not. You can enable invisible reCAPTCHA by adding a data-size=“invisible” attribute to your reCAPTCHA tag.
- Custom CAPTCHA: This is a CAPTCHA that you can create yourself using your own logic and design. For example, you can use a simple math question, a trivia question, or a random word generator. You can also customize the appearance and difficulty of your CAPTCHA to suit your website’s style and audience.
Firewalls
Firewalls are another way to prevent spam form submissions by blocking suspicious traffic from reaching your website. Firewalls are software or hardware devices that monitor and filter the incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predefined rules. By using a firewall, you can prevent spam bots from accessing your website and submitting your forms.
There are different types of firewalls that you can use, such as:
- Web Application Firewall (WAF): This is a firewall that protects your web applications from common web attacks, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and brute force attacks. A WAF can also detect and block spam bots based on their behavior, IP address, user agent, and other criteria. You can use a WAF to protect your website from spam form submissions by configuring rules that block requests that match certain patterns or conditions.
- Cloud-based Firewall: This is a firewall that is hosted and managed by a third-party service provider. A cloud-based firewall can provide you with additional features and benefits, such as scalability, reliability, performance, and ease of use. A cloud-based firewall can also protect your website from spam form submissions by filtering out malicious traffic before it reaches your server.
Honeypots
Honeypots are another technique that you can use to prevent spam form submissions by tricking spam bots into revealing themselves. Honeypots are hidden form fields that are invisible to human users but visible to spam bots. By adding a honeypot to your form, you can identify and discard spam submissions that fill in the hidden field.
There are different ways to create and implement honeypots, such as:
- Using CSS: You can use CSS to hide a form field from human users by setting its display property to none or its visibility property to hidden. For example, you can add the following HTML and CSS code to your form:
HTML AI-generated code. Review and use carefully.
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="honeypot" value="" />
CSSAI-generated code. Review and use carefully.
#honeypot {
display: none;
}
Then, you can check the value of the honeypot field in your form processing script. If the field is not empty, it means that a spam bot has filled it in and you can reject the submission.
- Using JavaScript: You can use JavaScript to hide a form field from human users by setting its style property to display:none or visibility:hidden. For example, you can add the following HTML and JavaScript code to your form:
HTMLAI-generated code. Review and use carefully.
<input type="text" name="honeypot" id="honeypot" value="" />
<script>
document.getElementById("honeypot").style.display = "none";
</script>
Then, you can check the value of the honeypot field in your form processing script. If the field is not empty, it means that a spam bot has filled it in and you can reject the submission.
Real-time Verification Tools
Real-time verification tools are another option that you can use to prevent spam form submissions by validating the information that users enter in your form. Real-time verification tools are services that check the validity and accuracy of the data that users provide, such as email addresses, phone numbers, names, and addresses. By using real-time verification tools, you can reject spam submissions that contain fake or invalid data.
There are different types of real-time verification tools that you can use, such as:
- Email Verification Tools: These are tools that verify the existence and deliverability of email addresses. Email verification tools can help you prevent spam form submissions by checking if the email addresses that users enter in your form are valid, active, and not disposable.
- Phone Verification Tools: These are tools that verify the authenticity and ownership of phone numbers. Phone verification tools can help you prevent spam form submissions by checking if the phone numbers that users enter in your form are real, reachable, and not spoofed.
Other Techniques
In addition to the tools and techniques mentioned above, there are some other methods that you can use to prevent spam form submissions, such as:
- Filtering Proxies and VPNs: You can filter out spam submissions that come from proxies and VPNs, which are services that hide the real IP address and location of the user. Proxies and VPNs can be used by spammers and bots to bypass security measures and avoid detection. You can use tools like IP2Proxy and IP2Location to detect and block requests that come from proxies and VPNs.
- Checking for IFrames: You can check if your form is being loaded inside an iframe, which is a HTML element that allows embedding another web page within a web page. IFrames can be used by spammers and bots to load your form on their own website and submit it without your consent. You can use JavaScript to detect and prevent your form from being loaded inside an iframe. For example, you can add the following code to your form:
JavaScriptAI-generated code. Review and use carefully.
if (window.top !== window.self) {
// The form is inside an iframe
window.top.location = window.self.location; // Redirect to the original page
}
- Implementing Two-Factor Authentication: You can implement two-factor authentication, which is a security method that requires users to provide two pieces of evidence to prove their identity. Two-factor authentication can help you prevent spam form submissions by adding an extra layer of verification to your form, such as sending a code to the user’s email or phone number. You can use tools like Authy and Google Authenticator to implement two-factor authentication for your form.
- Blocking the Form Once Filled Out: You can block the form once it has been filled out and submitted by the user, to prevent multiple submissions from the same user or bot. You can use cookies, sessions, or database records to track and limit the number of submissions per user or IP address. You can also use JavaScript to disable the form fields and the submit button after the form has been submitted.
- Recording Data from the Form Submissions: You can record and analyze the data from the form submissions, such as the IP address, user agent, timestamp, and referrer of the user. This can help you identify and block spam submissions that have suspicious or abnormal patterns, such as coming from the same IP address, using the same user agent, submitting the form in a very short time, or having no referrer.
Conclusion
Spam form submissions are a serious problem that can affect your website’s performance, user experience, and data quality. However, by using the latest tools and techniques that we have discussed in this blog post, you can prevent spam form submissions and protect your website from spammers and bots. We hope that this blog post has been helpful and informative for you.
