FreeYour site + a spam checkAbout 35 min
Stop Form Spam Without Losing Real Leads
Spam bots fill in forms all day. If you block too hard, you also block customers. The goal is to catch the bots and let people through.
Why This Matters
The worst mistake is a hard puzzle on the form. Real customers on phones give up, and you lose jobs to stop junk. A form should be easy for a person and a little annoying for a robot.
✓ How To Do It
- Count what you get now. Look at a month of form entries and mark each as real or spam.
- Add a hidden field to the form that people never see. Bots fill in every field. If it has text, throw the entry away. This is called a honeypot.
- Add a time check. If the form is sent in under three seconds, a bot did it.
- Add a free check from your form tool or host. Cloudflare Turnstile is one option that mostly runs in the background. Read its plans page before you count on it.
- Block links in the message box if you do not need them. Most junk entries carry links.
- Keep a spam folder. Do not delete rejected entries at once. Save them for a week.
- Each week, check the spam folder for a real person. Look for a real name and number. Fix the rule that caught them.
- Let the visitor know when an entry is rejected, with a phone number to call instead. A real person who is blocked will then call.
- Re-test the form with a real submission after every spam rule, to make sure real entries still arrive.
- Compare your month count again. Spam should drop and real leads should stay the same.
Done WhenSave the before and after counts of real and spam entries and a screenshot of a real test form arriving.
Reference List
Tips & Pitfalls
- If spam gets through, add one rule at a time.
- Add a phone number on the form page. It is the best backup for a blocked person.
- Do not add more fields to stop spam.
