Membership Training "6-Step Guide to Start Membership Websites" Join Live Webcast
How to Block Spam Form Submissions on Your Website

You just finished launching your website and are now waiting on the fruits of your labor. Your site is SEO friendly, it has high quality shareable content, and you already have people signing up to become members. But it’s inevitable that spam bots will eventually find your site and begin submitting spam submissions, making it a chore to sift through the illegitimate submissions to find true leads and genuine customer inquiries.

In fact, according to Propeller CRM, 45% of all emails are spam and this spam costs businesses $20.5 billion each year in lost productivity and technical expenses.

You’re likely not interested in the magic diet pills, stories from Nigerian princes and losing valuable time and money having to deal with these bogus form submissions. So the question is…

How do you protect your website and overcome annoying spam?

There are three primary ways to combat website spam. We’ll go trough these options in order of effectiveness.

Effective spam blocking options:

Google ReCaptcha

ReCaptcha, developed by Google, is a free tool aimed at stopping spam form submissions on websites. It begins with a simple checkbox that users are required to click. Checking the box is usually sufficient for most human visitors to pass. However, if suspicious activity is detected when checking the box, ReCaptcha will present a task that requires users to identify specific elements from a visual puzzle.

This is the most common form of anti-spam protection and it’s likely that every single internet user has interacted with a ReCaptcha element on more than one occasion. All Brilliant Directories websites come standard with ReCaptcha integration.

brilliant directories recaptcha

Honeypot

A popular yet inconspicuous method is known as a HONEYPOT. This method essentially tricks bots into filling out a hidden field in your form. If the field is filled out then the form submission is flagged as spam.

To get more technical, a honeypot works by enlisting the help of a decoy hidden field in a form. Spam bots usually fill out every field when submitting a web form. Humans can not see the hidden honeypot field so naturally, it’s left blank. Therefore, it’s safe to assume that a form submission is spam and was generated by a bot if that submission has the honeypot field filled.

Implementing a honeypot in your website’s forms is simple. All you need to do is add a hidden field to your form. The field can be named anything, but it must be hidden from users with CSS or another method.

If you have a website powered by Brilliant Directories, rest assured that all of your website’s forms already include a hidden honeypot field.

Anti-Spam Form Protector

The best way to block spam form submissions on your website is by utilizing a anti-spam plugin that checks form submissions against a database of known spam-related keywords.

Akismet is the most popular anti-spam plugin for WordPress powered websites. For directory websites and membership websites powered by Brilliant Directories, Spam Form Protector is a free add-on that allows you to specify individual keywords, phrases and characters. If a form submission includes any of the specific keywords it will automatically be marked as spam and blocked.

This is the ideal form of spam protection as it allows you, the website owner, to fine tune the list of known spam keywords so as to limit false positives depending on the subject matter of your website.

spam form protector add-on
You can protect your website, efficiently identify genuine leads, and improve your response time by using the three anti-spam techniques described here. By default, websites powered by Brilliant Directories include Google ReCaptcha, honeypot fields, and the optional Spam Form Protector add-on.

The Elevator Pitch
Why Choose Brilliant Directories

We'll make it short and sweet:

  • We Know Membership Sites — We've taken care of all the heavy lifting so you can focus on growing your membership community and getting users signed up.
  • Access to Expert Support — We know you have questions... Our dedicated support team works 'round the clock to quickly resolve any technical issues.
  • Trusted by 30,000+ Websites — With over 10 years of experience, we understand the unique needs of online membership communities.
👋 Hello! Try the FREE DEMO
👋 See How It All Works...

Instant Access to All Features + See Your Idea Come Alive

brilliant-directories-reviews6

Brilliant Directories has helped grow our company

We love BD. After using other website platforms for our business, BD has helped to grow our company in ways we couldn't have imagined. If you are serious about starting an online directory we highly recommend that you use BD. They have more settings and built-in tools than we initially thought - which helps tremendously. It's so easy that once you start your first project, you want to launch even more website ideas on the platform... You won't be sorry!

Clayton B. — Louisiana, USA Read More Reviews

Questions Before Getting Started?

We're always happy to chat about your goals and explain what comes with your Brilliant Directories website. Contact us or call to speak with a friendly team member now: +1-800-771-9332

Send a Message

START YOUR IDEA TODAY
Launch a Free Demo Website Below

  • Learn how to setup membership plans, connect your payment gateway and generate revenue
  • Tour the features that will help you manage your community and maximize productivity
  • Experience how members will view, edit and self-manage their personal accounts
  • Customize your demo site to match your brand
Safe & Secure. Try it free for as long as you like.