How to avoid spam-filled-in-forms?

I don’t know how to call them, but recently I am getting too many returns of forms that are filled in with an “email address” filled in + tons of junk in the other fields. I have the Spam action applied of course but that is not made for this problem. What options do I have to avoid this kind of spam?

Greetings,

Paul


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How are you creating your forms

Tim’s PHP Feedback form action (recent versions) has a checkbox “Add a spam trap”

It creates an invisible/hidden form field that if filled in by a bot will stop the form being submitted.

There is also an action from Mike B that uses a Captcha to stop bots doing the same thing. http://www.actionsforge.com/projects/view/36-easicaptcha

Unfortunately there is not much you can do if these forms are being manually filled with c**p

David


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The PHP easiForm actions should sort this for you.

After selecting ‘Advanced’ from the menu you can select the second or
last option from the ‘Badwords’ menu, then if it needs it add any
other text to catch this spam to the ‘Bad words other…’ field.

I have a lot of forms on various sites, I went through the same as
you, now my forms ‘nearly’ all use the PHP easiForm actions, I simply
make some adjustments to the Badwords field of the action and then it
all stops. The problem now is people are actually sending spam
manually from web forms so although a CAPTCHA helps where bots are
concerned they don’t when an actual person is sending spam to the
address the form is to be sent to. To combat this you can only block
the email through the text or words the sending is using, a lot of
this spam might be sent with [url]http://someaddress, if so select
‘[url,[http’ from the Badwords menu. I also add the odd word to the
Badwords ‘other…’ field depending on what I get, for example a
persistent user on one domain just kept coming back and at the end of
the day would just send the actual domain with no links (something
like canadapillshere.com), so I just added the first part of the
domain (canadapillshere) to the Badwords ‘other…’ field and that
eventually stopped him. In saying this it is generally easier to stop
these people as in most of my other forms just using the Badwords menu
has been enough.

BTW, I wrote the actions - Your server will need to be ioncube
friendly to use the PHP easiForm actions so if you do decide to use
them set up your form first using the actions to make sure they all
work on your server and then purchase the license, don’t make any
purchase until you are sure your hosting company are compatible with
ioncube and the forms work.

HTH

On May 16, 2009, at 2:03 AM, paulvw wrote:

I don’t know how to call them, but recently I am getting too many
returns of forms that are filled in with an “email address” filled
in + tons of junk in the other fields. I have the Spam action
applied of course but that is not made for this problem. What
options do I have to avoid this kind of spam?

Greetings,

Paul


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Update your subscriptions at:
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On May 16, 2009, at 2:11 AM, DeltaDave wrote:

How are you creating your forms

Tim’s PHP Feedback form action (recent versions) has a checkbox “Add
a spam trap”

It creates an invisible/hidden form field that if filled in by a bot
will stop the form being submitted.

Won’t stop the problem that paulvw is having unfortunately.

There is also an action from Mike B that uses a Captcha to stop bots
doing the same thing. ActionsForge - The Complete Repository of Freeway Actions

Still won’t stop the problem that paulvw is having. It will probably
stop bots from using the form but not an actual person sending spam to
the form email address the online form is sent to as the user simply
fills in the rubbish and sends the form… which goes to the
recipient’s email address.

Unfortunately there is not much you can do if these forms are being
manually filled with c**p

Well there is actually, you can block this using the Badwords options
with PHP easiForm ‘and I have seen some other form handling scripts in
the past also use this’.

I have explained in my previous post how these types of spam can be
blocked using the PHP easiForm actions.

HTH

David


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Sounds good. Thanks a lot folks. I’m gonna dive into this. Mike, 'll get back - via your website - if our host is ioncube friendly!

Cheers,

Paul


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