Invisible Spam Protection for WordPress Forms

Are you sick of getting spam from your contact forms?

You’re certainly not alone. Spam is something every website has to deal with at some point, and it can be a real pain to get it under control.

But spam isn’t just an inconvenience or annoyance. Did you know it can also affect the health of your website? 😬

When spammers clog up your servers, your website performance and speed can drop dramatically. And Google doesn’t like slow sites. That’s right, spam can actually hurt SEO.

Lower rankings mean less reach, fewer people finding your website, and of course, reduced sales and conversions 📉.

If you’ve been putting off managing spam for a while now, it’s time to grab the bull by the horns! The sooner you make some changes, the sooner you’ll see positive effects. And the payoff can be way bigger than you imagine 💰.

What does modern spam protection do?

⚡ Reduces strain on your servers and speeds up your website
⏱️ Saves you tons of time — less junk mail to weed through
📈 Improves your conversion rates and boosts business

How can Formidable Forms help?

Formidable Forms makes blocking spam submissions easy. Use our drag-and-drop form builder to add a CAPTCHA field to your form for instant anti-spam protection on WordPress.

The easy way to add reCAPTCHA to forms in WordPress — Formidable Forms makes it super simple to add spam protection to WordPress forms

Formidable supports both hCAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA. And both Honeypot invisible spam protection and JavaScript token protection are built into every Formidable form too!

CAPTCHA settings for invisible spam protection in online forms.

Scared spam protection might lower conversion rates?

Don’t worry, Formidable Forms lets you make your CAPTCHA invisible too. Now your spam blocker won’t negatively impact user experience!

This feature is included in all Formidable versions.

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This plugin is the best form plugin I’ve used. The build feature is solid, the reCaptcha setup is seamless, and I love the form entry storage.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I stop spam form submissions?

One of the best and easiest ways to prevent spam form submissions in WordPress is to use Formidable Forms.

Our WordPress form builder comes with powerful spam blockers right out of the box. All your online forms automatically include invisible anti-spam. And it only takes a couple of clicks to add even more layers of spam protection to forms.

What is reCAPTCHA?

ReCAPTCHA is a free Google anti-spam service that tests whether a user is a human or a robot.

Odds are good that you’ve run into reCAPTCHA before.

invisible spam protection form

Should I use reCAPTCHA on forms?

The short answer is yes. There is an obvious drawback to using reCAPTCHA on your web forms — the matching games and puzzles can be a pain! 😤 —, but Formidable Forms lets you add an invisible reCAPTCHA to your forms. That means users won’t have to do anything and you’ll still benefit from fantastic spam protection.

What is the difference between reCAPTCHA and Honeypot?

The difference between reCAPTCHA and Honeypot is that reCAPTCHA asks users to complete a puzzle or matching game to prove they're human, while Honeypot uses hidden fields to catch bots without bothering users.

reCAPTCHA is a tool made by Google that gives users challenges in order to submit a form. Bots won’t be able to complete these tasks, so they won’t be able to submit the form. 🧩
Honeypot, on the other hand, is sneakier. It adds a hidden field to online forms that only bots can see. If this invisible field is filled out, it's probably a bot, and the submission gets rejected. 🍯 This kind of invisible spam protection is really nice because it doesn't bug users at all, in fact, they won’t even know it’s there!

Why should I use Akismet spam protection?

Akismet detects and prevents spam by comparing words, email addresses, and IP addresses with a constantly updated list.

Basically, it instantly runs hundreds of tests on each form entry to determine whether or not to allow each form submission.

Akismet is used by millions of WordPress sites to block spam comments and form entries. According to their website, they block a whopping 7.5 million spam submissions per hour! 🤯

Akismet protection can be enabled by simply installing and activating the Akismet plugin on your website (a lot of the time, Akismet will be installed automatically when you install WordPress), and by turning it on in your Formidable form settings.

What’s JavaScript token spam protection?

JavaScript token spam protection is an even more effective form of spam protection, especially for protecting file uploads from spam. It creates a unique JavaScript token that’s specific to your site and is good for at least 24 hours.

An anti-spam JavaScript token is a secret code that’s created when you fill out a form. It's like a key 🔑 to prove you're a real person, not a spammer or a robot 🤖.

When you submit the form, the token goes along with it. Your site will check whether the token matches the correct one. If it matches, a form submission is accepted. If it doesn't match, the website thinks it might be spam and rejects the submission.

Should I use JavaScript token or CAPTCHA spam protection?

If you’re worried about accessibility, JavaScript token protection may be a better option than reCAPTCHA. ReCAPTCHA isn’t the most accessible technology, but that being said, invisible reCAPTCHA or hCAPTCHA doesn’t have that same problem.

Can I use the WordPress comment blocklist?

For a while now, the WordPress comment blocklist has been a first line of defense against spam. It lets you block specific words, phrases, or IP addresses that you know will cause spam.

Adding these conditions to your website’s built-in blocklist helps keep your forms safe not only from spam form submissions but from offensive comments too. Plus, it’s super simple and easy to set up.

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