How do I prevent spam in my forms?

What is already enabled?

Gravity Forms Zero Spam

The plugin Gravity Forms Zero Spam is active on your website. It adds a secret check to each form without visitors noticing. A real visitor won’t notice it, but most spam robots will be blocked by it. Visitors do not have to solve puzzles or click on traffic lights.

If a submission is seen as spam, this happens:

• no notification is sent, so you won’t receive an email;
• the submission appears in the list under Spam;
• the sender sees the general thank you message from Gravity Forms.

For each form, you can see if it is enabled: open the form, click on Settings and look for the switch Prevent spam with Gravity Forms Zero Spam. Keep it enabled.

Extra: the honeypot of Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms also has its own spam filter, the honeypot: a hidden field that only robots fill out. Enable it if you are still receiving a lot of spam despite Zero Spam.

1. Open the form and click on Settings.
2. Go to the block Spam Detection.
3. Enable the honeypot. In your version of Gravity Forms, this setting may be in English: Detect spam using the Advanced Honeypot.
4. Choose what should happen with a suspicious submission. Create an item and mark it as spam is the safest option: then you can always check if there was a real request among them.
5. Click on Save Settings at the bottom.

Extra: CAPTCHA

Gravity Forms also has a reCAPTCHA field from Google, the well-known “I am not a robot” checkbox. For that, you first need keys from Google that are filled in the settings of Gravity Forms. A CAPTCHA can be annoying for visitors, loads extra code from Google, and may place cookies. We only recommend it if the other measures are not sufficient. Do you still want it? Please consult with us first.

View and clean spam submissions

Go to Forms → Submissions and click on Spam above the list. Here are the submissions that have been blocked.

• Is there a real request among them? Open it and choose Not spam. It will then return to the regular list.
• Do you see spam among the regular submissions? Select them and choose Mark as spam in the bulk actions.
• Clean up spam occasionally by deleting the submissions.

A field that attracts spam

Spam robots are mainly after placing links. A field that asks for a website address, or a large message field without other questions, attracts more spam. Only ask for a website address if you really need it. A simple extra question, such as a dropdown list “What is your question about?”, makes the form harder for robots and more convenient for you.

You can read how to add or remove fields in how to customize a contact form.

Is it still coming?

If you are still receiving a lot of spam after these steps, or if real requests are being blocked, let us know. We will take a look at the form and the settings. You can read which plugins are standard on your website in which plugins are standard on your website. Submissions are also automatically cleaned up, see how long submissions are retained.

Not working?

• You are missing requests, but no spam is coming in anymore. Check under Spam if there are any real requests and mark those as Not spam.
• Spam is coming in through one form. Check that form to see if the Zero Spam switch is on and enable the honeypot.
• Spam always contains links. Remove an unnecessary website field or add a simple choice question.

Can’t figure it out? Contact us or call 06 35 66 47 73.