Are you getting spammy emails on your Gmail or Official business account when you use the WordPress website’s contact form, review form, feedback form, or any other type of form?
Now, you want to know how to stop spam emails from your WordPress website.
Right, Let’s go.
In this blog, we will study seven quick mechanisms to block contact from spam forever.
WordPress contact form is the best way to stay connected with users or customers. It allows them to ask questions through this communication form with prompt replies.
Nevertheless, sometimes website operators experience headaches due to WordPress contact form spam, which can result in missing important emails from real users or customers.
Why is there a need to reduce or block contact form spam?
Before learning how to block form spamming, we must understand its need. In this section, we will learn about different dangerous factors due to which you have to stop spam on website.
Here are some reasons why email spam is dangerous for your WordPress website.
- If you want to send harmful links to any website, contact form spam is one of the best ways to do so. It can easily infect your website with any kind of virus, and you may lose your data or website.
- Whenever you submit a new form, you get a new email notification. Contact form spam can create email deliverability issues due to bulk email generation if your forms are under attack.
- Sometimes, the Denial of Service (DoS) bots send bulk emails to your inbox in a very short time span. It can slow down your website’s speed and generate a low user experience, decreasing their experience and upscaling your bounce rate.
- Contact form spam can lead to a website or data hacking. Through these spam emails, you may lose your account credentials or may encounter confidential information leaks. It may also result in account takeovers within no time.
- Whenever you get spam through the contact form, you will receive tons of emails. To read and filter important emails, you have to separate out important emails that may reduce the team productivity, resulting in a low brand reputation.
These are some prominent reasons you should implement spam prevention measures on your WordPress website. You can perform WordPress contact form spamming with the best tools and techniques to safeguard your site from any threat.
Several ways to perform WordPress contact form spam
In this section, we will study different ways on how can you prevent spam emails from the WordPress website.
Let us get started!
There is no way to block email spam from your WordPress website manually; you need some of the best plugins in this business from the WordPress repository.
To do so, either test the plugins individually on your WordPress website or watch YouTube videos of the plugins to check their functionality.
OR
View our suggested plugins in this blog post. Our experts have tested them on permanently blocking spam email through WordPress forms.
1. Install WPForms Plugin
You can add the WPForms plugin to your WordPress website to stop spam emails.
It provides various in-built spam prevention options. WPForms is one of the best contact form plugins for WordPress. It will help you block contact form spam from your website. It provides you with various features such as:
- In-built spam protection token
- Custom CAPTCHA
- In-built reCAPTCHA
To use this plugin for your website, you need to install and activate it.
After installing the plugin, click WPForms >> Add New. You can give your form a new name under the “Name Field” tab to recognize it quickly.
Select a new contact form under the pre-built templates and click the “Use Template” button to start with your contact form. You can edit fields or add new ones with the information you want to insert. After that, hit “Save” to save the edits in the form.
WPForms provides default settings to stop spam emails. For reassurance, you can head to the Spam Protection and Security option under the Settings tab to confirm that “Enable anti-spam protection” is enabled.
You can use the WPForms plugin to perform contact form spam prevention on your website in the most straightforward way.
2. Include reCAPTCHA
Another method to stop spam through spam bots is to add CAPTCHA in your contact forms. You can use the reCAPTCHA, a free tool by Google, with WPForms lite to add an in-built anti-spam token system.
To add this option, go to the WPForms >> Settings in the dashboard, then click the “CAPTCHA” tab and select “reCAPTCHA” to proceed.
Then scroll down to the “Type” section and choose the “Checkbox reCAPTCHA v2” option.
Now, you need to fill out the Site Key and Secret Key to proceed to the next step. Head to the Google reCAPTCHA page and click “v3 Admin Console” to get started.
Log in to your Google account and then register your WordPress website. Afterwards, label your CAPTCHA and choose the “reCAPTCHA v3” option.
Enter your website’s domain under the “Domain name” section and hit the submit button to complete the form. Now, you will see a page with the “site key” and “secret key” for WPForms.
Copy these keys and enter them in your WordPress dashboard. At the end, hit the “Save your changes” button to save your form. Now, your reCAPTCHA form is ready.
To add reCAPTCHA to your form, click on the WPForms >> All Forms and hit the “Edit” button to protect your form. Drag the “reCAPTCHA” field and click it to add it to your form. You will see a confirmatory message for the form and click “OK” for the same.
Once you add the reCAPTCHA to your form, you will see a logo on the top right-hand side indicating that your form is reCAPTCHA enabled. Click the “Save” button to enable the final changes.
It is one of the best ways to prevent contact form spam on your website. It helps you to stop getting spam on websites that will keep your site safe and secure.
3. Use hCAPTCHA in Forms
It is more likely to reCAPTCHA, but it provides more privacy.
To use this preventive method for contact form spam, head towards the WPForms >> Settings and then choose the CAPTCHA option. Under this, you must select the “hCAPTCHA” option to start further.
You will head towards a new tab where you have to sign in with hCAPTCHA to use their service. Then choose the suitable plan and fill out your details to create your account.
Now, you have to register your site on which you want to add the hCAPTCHA. Click the “New Site” button and then enter your site’s domain by hitting the “Add new domain“.
Select the CAPTCHA behavior and select the difficulty level under the Passing Threshold section. In the end, hit the “Save” button to confirm it.
Head towards the “Settings” option in front of the website for which you want to activate hCAPTCHA. Copy the Site Key and keep it to text editor.
Now, copy the Secret Key from the “Settings” option under the Site tab.
Paste both the keys and hit the “Save” button to complete your hCAPTCHA setup in the WPForms. Now, the hCAPTCHA is ready to use on your website using the WPForms.
Under the “Standard Fields” look for the hCAPTCHA option and select it to see that either it is enabling or not.
If you see hCAPTCHA badge in the top right corner of form, then it is enabled on your website.
It is one of the safest ways to stop spam on a website through the WordPress contact form.
4. Use Custom CAPTCHA
Instead of using reCAPTCHA or hCAPTCHA, you can create custom CAPTCHA for spam prevention. To use this add-on for WPForms, you have to launch the form builder interface.
Then, select the “Custom CAPTCHA” option under the “Fancy Fields” section.
If you do not see the option, kindly install the add-on for the same.
Click the option “Yes, Install and Activate” to proceed further.
After installing the add-on, you will see a pop-up screen in which you have to select the option “Yes, Save and Refresh” to add the CAPTCHA on your form.
Now, drag-and-drop the Custom CAPTCHA field in your form and get access to its settings. Customize the label and add description to move forward.
Select the CAPTCHA type and then “Save” it to add it to your form.
5. Initiate Email Verification
You can prevent contact form spam by adding an email verification option in your form. It will stop spam emails on your website while keeping it more secure and safe.
To add email verification method, click the “User Registration” tab under the Settings section. Then, click the “Enable User Registration” option to allow verification using the email address.
Then, ticks the “Enable user activation” option under the “User activation and Login” section to allow your site perform email verification of the users.
You have enabled the email verification that will help your website to prevent spam mails from spam bots.
6. Block Repeated Email Address
You can stop contact form spamming by blocking repeated email address using the WPForms advance settings.
Under the Fields section, head towards the “Advanced” tab under the Email field to block a repeating email address.
Now, scroll down to the Allowlist/Denylist drop down, and choose the “Denylist” option.
In this Denylist, you can enter several email addresses separated by the comma to prevent repeated email address. You can also restrict or block email address by giving the command (*@domain.com) or (example*), respectively. Then, hit the “Save” button in the end.
7. Blacklist Spammy IP Address
You can prevent your site from contact form spamming by disallowing or blocking spammy IP addresses from your website.
Go to the Settings >> Discussion from your WordPress dashboard. Now, enter the IP addresses that you want to block in the “Disallowed Comment Keys” section.
Make sure that you add multiple IP addresses in a new line. Then, hit the “Save Changes” button to block all these addresses.
Conclusion
Contact form helps you to stay connected with the users but sometimes it can be very irritating due to spam emails. Hence, this blog will help you to get rid of these contact form spam in your WordPress website.
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