Stop spam bots from using contact forms

[calum]

hi

Setting up contact forms on a website is great for getting feedback. However it also a good way to let spam bots attack the website too.

Is there a way to block an IP address from using the contact form?

thanks

[MTpockets2]

Hi there!

Unfortunately our default contact forms don't have any captcha protection on them, however we do have a few apps in our app center you can use to block IP's from accessing your site. 

http://www.weebly.com/app-center search for Block IP 

[pjwuebker]

This is truly getting out of hand.

So the solution for the default form is to load a plugin that let's me specify the IP address of the senders to block? That's nuts. Spending time loading IP addresses? Who is to say that each message isn't from a different address?

I am getting a half dozen or more spam messages on our Contact Us form every day and it is growing.

Since you mentioned this was for the default form, there must be a non-default form. How does that form solve the problem? Why aren't we using it?

It makes no sense to not include something as simple as CAPTCHA which might eliminate this growing problem.

Clearly the spammers have found Weebly's system to be an easy hack since I am not the only one where this is starting to happen.

[Bruce13]

The quantity of spam coming through the contact forms is beyond belief is there a solution other than block the IP addresses.

I can easily block 3 or 4 per day from anywhere in the world, my fear is that by blocking them they are alerted that the contact form is live.

Are there plans to introduce capitcha or something similar.

[Adam7]

I don't believe that anyone would know you were blocking, and if they did human spammers like that would just move on to another form.

We have some other third party contact forms in our Help Center which might have some features you like. I'd recommend checking them out to see if one of them might work better for you:

https://www.weebly.com/app-center/search/form

[mattnzw]

How about cusomters on your designer platform. It doesn't appear that the Apps can be installed on these weebly websites. I am concerned about setting up contact forms with no form of spam protection, as I will likely end up getting lots of complaints from clients about spam.. 

[Adam7]

Since the App Center is not currently available, you could also use a third party form in an Embed Code element. Some of the form options in our App Center also provide widget code.

[Hollafix]

Did anyone test the apps and see which one was the best for a simple contact form? Weebly, I would expect your built in app would have a captcha of some sort. I pay a business subscription and this is best practice in my opinion. Please add this to your update requests.

[Adam7]

We've actually added a captcha for our form element now, @Hollafix. Click on your form in the editor, then click the "form options" button. Toggle on the "Google Captcha" option, then re-publish.

[Hollafix]

Thanks Adam. I had that option enabled already but there is no captcha shown when publishing on my site. Are there any steps to follow that Weebly can publish? At the moment I can't see that it even works as you mention.

[Adam7]

Were you logged into your Weebly account in the same browser that you were testing your form? I don't think it will use it if you are. I saw that with a test site of my own, but when I used another browser or a private/incognito window it showed.

[Hollafix]

Hi Adam, What is exactly is meant to happen when you enable google captcha in the form options? On my site, I don't see a captcha button and I have enabled the google captcha, published the site and tried to access from another browser on PC and iPhone. Is there some other coding that is required?

[Hollafix]

Thought I'd update for others benefit. I enabled the captcha which I was expecting to see the 'I'm not a robot' option. That is not the case but after the person enters submit, they will get the images to click and choose from, eg. click all the pictures that are a balloon. On my side, I had to clear my cache to see it working or as Adam suggested, go incognito. It prompt me on the iPhone which is understandable because it is fairly locked down so can't run a spam bot. Thanks Adam. Would love Weebly to update their KB on this though. It would only take 5 minutes.

[mac2martin]

Thank you very much for this information - it works. Open in incognito and the capcha box pops up. 

M

[Fotowelle]

Also I was first wondering why I can't see a captcha. But now I see that the captach only appears after the "send" button was hit. Makes sense to me.

Thanks to weebly for implementing this feature.

Yvonne

[CGreen2]

I'm just testing this now and I'm confused. So I can open an incognito window, and I can see the reCAPTCHA. And then I can submit the form without having to tick the captcha!!  I know as I then get confirmation of the form submission.  How does this solve the problem at all? 

I would expect that if recaptcha is enabled it should be a mandatory field before submission

We should not still be discussing this in 2018!

[Adam7]

Can you provide a link to your form, @CGreen? I would like to test it since if the CAPTCHA shows it should prevent submission unless someone proves their human.

[CGreen2]

Hi Adam

Did some more testing this morning.  I think this is user error ... sorry!  On the original page I first tried adding my own captcha to the form, but, although I deleted the header code, I didn't delete the custom html I'd added - that's what I  was seeing, after I checked the html this morning and created a new page with a new form

https://ggstaging.weebly.com/

This is a new page which does not show the captcha incognito at all - although if I look at the network activity I can see the api being called, which I assume is it being invoked behind the scenes?

[Adam7]

It does work behind the scenes, and will automatically be used if certain spammy factors show up. I'm not sure what those criteria are, but I know during testing I've managed to make the captcha show. It's nice like that, though, since human visitors generally won't have the hassle of the CAPTCHA but spam bots will hit it and get deflected.

[#20]

I have gotten several dozen spam emails from Russia. They are continuing even though I turned on the CAPTCHA. Now what should I do? This is very frustrating.

[Bernadette3]

Can you post the url with the form so we can take a look?