How to Stop WordPress Contact Form Spam in 7 Easy Steps

One of the biggest headaches when running a WordPress website is spam. Unsolicited spam emails sent through contact forms not only waste your time but can also pose a security threat, thus consuming valuable resources to deal with them. Now we take some feasible ways to minimize or even completely block contact form spam on WordPress websites.

1. Use CAPTCHA - The Easiest Way to Prevent WordPress Contact Forms from Getting Spammed

One of the best ways to prevent WordPress contact forms from receiving spam is to add a CAPTCHA, which stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart". It does this by asking users to complete tasks that are easy for humans to do but difficult for robots.

By forcing users to validate that they are indeed real people and not bots, you can effectively stop bots from submitting forms, thus greatly reducing the amount of spam.

The benefits of adding CAPTCHA include:

• Block most automated bots from submitting forms, including advanced bots.
• Easily implemented in all WordPress contact forms using the CAPTCHA 4 WP plugin.
• It provides an excellent user experience as only a few users need to complete the verification and most users are familiar with this type of verification.

It's not hard to add CAPTCHA to your WordPress contact form. the CAPTCHA 4 WP plugin provides you with a simple solution. It supports multiple CAPTCHA service providers, including reCAPTCHA, hCAPTCHA, and Cloudflare Turnstile, and integrates with WordPress native forms as well as many third-party themes and plugins. You can add CAPTCHAs to various forms on your WordPress site with just a few clicks.

First, you need to choose the right CAPTCHA 4 WP license for you. Even the free version can fulfill most needs. The Premium version comes with a 30-day money back guarantee on all packages, so you can try it with confidence as well.

mountingCAPTCHA 4 WPIt's also very simple. After selecting your package, you will receive an email with instructions on how to download and install the plugin.

After downloading the plugin file, open your site's WordPress backend and click "Plugins" > "Add New Plugin". Next, click on the "Upload Plugin" button in the upper left corner of the screen and select "Choose File".

After uploading, installing and activating the plugin, click on the CAPTCHA 4WP tab and you will automatically be taken to the setup wizard.

The setup wizard is easy to understand, but to make sure everything goes smoothly, I'll go over it for you in detail. First, select the type of CAPTCHA you want to use. For this example, I'll be using Google reCAPTCHA v2.

After clicking Next, you will be prompted to add a site key.

Paste your site key into the "Site Key" field and click "Continue to get key". Next, enter your key in the "Key" field.

After clicking "Validate and Continue", you will be returned to the CAPTCHA 4WP dashboard.

Add CAPTCHA to Contact Form , now that you have set up CAPTCHA 4WP, you can add CAPTCHA to your contact form, let's take contact form 7 as an example.

• Open WordPress Dashboard
• Click on "Contacts" and select "Contact form"
• Mouse over the form you want to add a captcha to and click "Edit".

• Mouse over the location where you wish to add a CAPTCHA and click the CAPTCHA shortcut button
• Click "Insert Label" so that the CAPTCHA label will be automatically added to the form.

Do this and you will be safe from most bot attacks.

2. Use Honeypot plugin

Honeypot is a hidden field that is added to the form. This is done to ensure that the real user cannot see the field and therefore cannot fill it in. Many bots, especially the less complex ones, will automatically fill in every field, regardless of whether the field is visible on the page or not. This means that the honeypot field will also be filled in, making it clear that the form was filled in by a bot and not by the real user.

Therefore, while it is a great addition to CAPTCHA to add an extra layer of control, it is often considered less efficient as a standalone solution.

Many form plugins have this functionality built-in, including Gravity Forms and WP Forms. if not, you can also use many third-party honeypot plugins, both paid and free.

Simply activate the honeypot feature and you add another layer of protection against contact form spam.

3. Use firewall plug-ins

A firewall is like a security guard for your website; it filters website traffic, blocks bots, and helps reduce spam. A good firewall also protects your site from other malicious traffic. Even if you don't have a spam problem, using a firewall is a good security measure.

The WordPress firewall works on the site as a whole, rather than targeting a form individually. This means that if there is suspicious bot behavior, it can help stop them from accessing or crawling your site. This makes it a great additional security measure against contact form spam, as it works differently than CAPTCHA and honeypot.

Most self-hosted WordPress sites use WordPress plugins to add firewall functionality. When you install these plugins, they do the following for every HTTP request your site receives:

1. First, the web server service (Apache or Nginx) receives it.
2. The request then triggers the loading of WordPress, including initializing the database connection and loading settings.
3. It is parsed by the WordPress Firewall plugin before WordPress actually processes the request.

4. Regularly update the plug-in

While updating plugins on a regular basis may not seem like the primary way to prevent spam, it is crucial.

Whether you're using a contact form plugin or an anti-spam plugin, continually updating them ensures that they can cope with the latest bot programs.

Updates usually include bug fixes, security enhancements, or patches, all of which help improve the security of the plugin. If there are vulnerabilities that allow spammers to bypass your security plugin, the number of spam emails may increase.

Cybersecurity is a constant battle, bad actors are constantly coming up with new ways to send spam and plugins need to be constantly adapted to meet these challenges. If you don't update the plugin, you won't be able to get these updates, and spam may become more and more prevalent until you take action.

Regularly checking and updating your plugins/themes can help you keep your website and contact forms secure.

5. Directly block spammers

Set up email filtering rules to block emails from specific senders or sending organizations. These rules can be set up based on the sender's email address, IP address, or other identifier. There are several ways to accomplish this, including:

• Limit Submissions by Country/Region: You can limit the submission of contact forms from a specific country/region. This prevents anyone from that region from submitting your contact form. This is useful if your site is targeted to a specific region, but not so much if it's for a wider region.
• Blocking Specific Email Addresses: If you find that a large amount of spam is coming from the same email address, you have the option of blocking that address from submitting contact forms. While this may seem unrealistic, it is actually very effective. For example, you can restrict submissions from certain well-known free email providers, or emails that contain certain combinations of characters.
• Blocking Traffic by IP Address: If you are having problems with spam from a specific IP address, you can block that traffic on your website. In most cases, this is not a practical solution, as spammers can easily use proxies to bypass the block. However, if you find a lot of spam from the same IP address, blocking those IP addresses can be very effective.
• Blocking Specific Languages: Blocking specific languages prevents contact forms from being submitted in languages commonly used by spammers (e.g. Russian and Chinese). Of course, this only works if your site is not targeted to those countries. Language blocking may be a good secondary measure, especially when combined with region-specific blocking.

6. Protect the form with a password

While this is usually not the best option, you can use password-protected contact forms. This prevents bots or spammers from accessing them. This can be effective on sites with a login feature that requires users to create an account before submitting a contact form.

Obviously, this is only an option in very specific circumstances. However, when needed, it is usually a very effective option.

7. Block copy/paste on pages/websites

As with the previous step, this is not the friendliest option for reducing contact form spam.

There are a number of WordPress plugins that can help you add copy protection. These plugins usually trigger a pop-up warning or block action when a user tries to copy content. You can search the WordPress plugin marketplace for "copy protection"or"content protection" to find the right plugin for your needs.

Finally, we need to be vigilant in raising awareness of cybersecurity awareness and training

Email is one of the most common ways bad actors use to spread malware. Phishing is also often carried out via e-mail.

While not all spam contains phishing links or malicious content, many do. This requires everyone to know how to recognize spam and take appropriate measures to deal with it.

Spam Recognition

Even if you manage to block a lot of spam through your WordPress contact form, occasionally something will slip through. That's why it's so important to recognize genuine mail from spam.

Some common types of spam include:

• Unsolicited advertising emails
• phishing email
• Emails containing malicious links
• Random character or empty form submission

Let's be careful:

• Email language is different from what you normally use
• Unsubscribed advertising emails
• Mismatched email addresses, e.g. an email address claiming to be from PayPal is "paypal@gmail.com"
• Contains strange or inappropriate links or attachments
• Emails cover porn, hacking, Viagra and other topics
• Use of urgent or threatening language
• Requests for personal or sensitive information

If you notice these traits, be extra careful and avoid clicking on links or providing personal information.