If you are sick of spam from your website you will be happy to know there are some solutions. It can get very annoying having to deal with all the spam that is clogging up your inbox. Most businesses have to deal with it on a daily basis, and it can be a frustrating ordeal. But, there are ways you can reduce the amount of spam you have to deal with, or eliminate it almost entirely. To help you out, here are 5 quick tips to reducing spam on your website.

1. Use a honeypot

A honeypot is a hidden question in your form. When it gets filled out, you know that it was filled out by a bot. Honeypots are one of the easiest things you can implement. While it will help you recognise a bot it may not necessarily stop it from going into your inbox on its own. To do that you will need to set up some conditions in your form, where if that section is filled, it won’t send you an email.

There are some cons to a honeypot. For example, it won’t stop human spammers from simply ignoring it and submitting anyway. Some of your clients may unknowingly not have their inquiry sent through simply because they added something in that section. Despite this, it is a great place to start reducing spam.   

2. Block countries that send spam

You may have noticed that many of the spam IPs come from a very select few countries. This makes it really easy to block a lot of spam by simply blocking out all traffic from these locations. If you get the vast majority of your spam from these locations you will quickly see a large reduction in the amount of spam received. As long as your customer base is not in any of these countries, this could be a very easy fix.

3. Add a CAPTCHA to your forms

Another alternative to avoiding spambots is adding a reCAPTCHA. These provide a challenge, mixed with AI which discovers and stops bots in their tracks. They have evolved a lot from the old school jumbled letters and numbers which you had to retype. ReCAPTCHA version 3 doesn’t even have a button. Instead, it uses data on the user, looking at the cookies in their browser and more to determine whether you are a human or not. If it is unsure, it provides a little puzzle to solve.

4. Reduce chances of your email being harvested

In some cases, spammers are now realising that they cannot rely on your contact form solely to spam you. So, they have begun adapting, using bots to harvest your email address directly from your website. These bots search the web for publicly visible email addresses to harvest them, adding them to an email database. Spammers then use this database to send out spam emails.

To stop this all you need to do is not showcase your email on your website. Instead, use a contact form everywhere on your website that you want your clients to email you from. This way your emails can be protected from spammers.

5. Use an anti-spam app

There are some great anti-spam apps out there that make dealing with spam a lot easier. Many of them combine a series of methods to detect and block spammers from your website. They also have massive databases full of IP addresses they know come from spammers and block them from using your website.

Conclusion

Spam is one of the biggest problems businesses face with their website. It can be frustrating to deal with, but fortunately, there are solutions to the problem. When hosting their website with Link Pixel, our clients get the highest quality spam protection available. Utilising a range of solutions, we work to massively reduce spam our clients receive.

If you want to reduce spam on your website reach out to us.