Avoid SPAM messsages in contact forms

Hi @copiaurbietorbi,

Thanks for reaching out!

You can share screenshots with us here using an online screenshot link sharing tool such as snipboard.io, or Lightshot.

It looks like you’ve looked into spam protection options, but in case it helps, here’s a detailed tutorial on how to set up reCAPTCHA in WPForms. If you have questions about setting up reCAPTCHA in WPForms please let us know.

And if you’d prefer not to use reCAPTCHA, you can consider the third-party plugins such as WordPress Zero Spam or Spam protection, AntiSpam, FireWall by CleanTalk which work out of the box to protect your forms against spam.

Hope this helps!

Hello Ethan,

Thank you for getting back to us. Following your suggestion, here is the link with the messages we get and that we are trying to avoid: https://prnt.sc/tmwcd6

We already installed recaptcha and selected this option, along with the smart honeypot technique, but we are still getting these messages.

Basically you fill out all the fields in the form and it will be sent no matter what. Where does the smart honeypot or recaptcha enter into action to avoid receiving these messages?

Thank you for your help and interest.

Hi @copiaurbietorbi,

When you get the chance, could you share a link to the page on your site where the form is displayed, so we can take a closer look?

The reCAPTCHA integration by Google uses spam detection technology to differentiate spambots from human users.

The honeypot option is a hidden field, which should not be filled up in a real submission since it is not visible to users. When bots fill up the form fields together with the honeypot field, the submission will not go through because it is flagged as spam.

For more details on these anti-spam options in WPForms, please see this article on our site.

Hello Ethan,

Sure thing. But please provide a private way to send the link of our page.

Thank you for the tutorial. As we mentioned before, we already installed recaptcha and selected this option, along with the smart honeypot technique, but we are still getting these messages.

Thank you for your help and interest.

Hi @copiaurbietorbi,

If it’s possible, could you create a page on your site that would allow us to test the form?

This is because www.ads-software.com rules do not allow us to use private channels to provide support for plugins hosted in their repository (which includes WPForms Lite).

Alternatively, if you’d like to consider using our private email support platform, this is available with any of our paid licenses.

Thanks!

Thanks!

Hi @copiaurbietorbi,

We haven’t heard back from you in about a week, so I’m going to go ahead and close this thread for now. But if you’d like us to assist, please feel welcome to continue the conversation.

Thanks!

Thank you for your help Ethan, we need a private way to send our link to you. We still get messages similar to the one that we provided earlier.

Hey @copiaurbietorbi,

Thanks for the update.

We’ll be releasing a new built-in anti-spam option in the next update to WPForms Lite soon (likely this week).

This option will provide more sophisticated protection against spam than the current anti-spam honeypot option, and it will be enabled by default for new forms.

For forms that were created before the next update, you can go to the form builder > Settings > General to select Enable anti-spam protection.

If you’d like to make use of this new anti-spam option, please update your plugin when the new version is available.

I apologize as we aren’t able to provide private support for WPForms Lite due to www.ads-software.com rules. If you’d like to use our email support, please consider purchasing a WPForms license. If you’d prefer not to purchase a license at this time, please feel welcome to post in this forum if you’ve any other questions.

Thanks!

Thank you for the update.

We updated the plugin. Do we need to add this protection to the honeypot and recaptcha that we already have enabled or do we need to enable just this new feature?

Thank you for your help and interest.

They existing “Honeypot” anti-spam form setting is being deprecated, because it’s not as effective as it was years ago – spam bots are more clever and they know to ignore the honeypot field.

What we recommend is editing any existing forms and switching from they honeypot feature to the new “Anti-spam protection” feature in the form settings.

We could not auto upgrade existing forms, because the new anti-spam feature relies on/requires JavaScript. So while this will no issue for 99% of existing forms, it could cause issues with some sites which custom code/integrations and we didn’t want to risk breaking backwards compatibility.

As far as reCAPTCHA, it’s still the “golden standard” as far spam protection. So our hope and goal is that the new anti-spam feature is much more effective than the old Honeypot feature, Google’s reCAPTCHA will still be the most effective defense against spam.

Hope that helps ??

We added the changes suggested and updated the form that we are using on our site. We are going to wait for a few days and see the changes if any on the spam/scam messages that we get and we will let you know.

We are going to open another ticket to address a different matter of the form that we need help with.

Thank you for your help.