Inbound leads from your contact forms are awesome…unwanted spam isn’t. You’re not alone if you’re experiencing this annoying inconvenience with your business website. A mentor of mine once said, “If you don’t like grease, stay out of the oil change business,” as a way of explaining that certain things come with the territory. The same goes for inbound spam to your contact forms, it’s a part of allowing the world to communicate with your business. But there are tools you can use to help reduce spam and keep these unwanted distractions from clogging up your inbound leads.

Google’s reCAPTCHA

1. You may have come across this method to reduce spam while doing your own web surfing. If you’ve ever had to identify traffic lights or other objects in an image before you could proceed through a contact form, you’ve experienced reCAPTCHA. Since spam is usually an automated bot trying to find ways to take over your site, email address, or even your contacts list, reCAPTCHA is a way to reduce spam by proving the user is human.
2. Not only will reCAPTCHA reduce spam from your contact forms, but users also feel safer submitting their information to a website that takes advantage of this security measure, increasing your inbound leads.
3. The original CAPTCHA used a text-based identification method, which proved too difficult for some users, so Google adopted the image-based version for v2. Taking the next step, reCAPTCHA v3 is now available, which scores users based on their website actions instead of asking them to complete a task. There is a chance with v3 that it could prevent legitimate inbound leads from submitting your contact forms, so v2 is probably best at this time to help you reduce spam.

Custom CAPTCHA

Plugins are available for your website contact forms that allow you to create a custom CAPTCHA to reduce spam. These are similar Google’s first version of CAPTCHA because they ask users to fill out a text box, usually by answering a simple question like, 2+2= [ ]. With some plugins, you can add several questions to your custom CAPTCHA, which can by cycled randomly to further help reduce spam from your contact forms.

Antispam Plugins

For website-wide protection, which includes contact forms, comment filters, and other ways to reduce spam, you can install an antispam plugin. These programs take advantage of blacklists filled with words, names, email addresses, and more to help reduce spam throughout your entire website. Some plugins include options to add CAPTCHA to your contact forms, so be sure to take a look at all the security options that are included.

We Can Help Reduce Spam from Your Contact Forms and Inbound Leads

If you want a dedicated team that will help you reduce spam from your contact forms and inbound leads, contact Big Rig Xpress today to get started.

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