How to Prevent Spam Form Submissions: 6 Methods That Work

As a website owner, you don’t want to be inundated with spam form submissions. But at the same time, you also don’t want to scare off legitimate inquiries with frustrating spam prevention protocols. 

So how can you prevent spam without drying up your pipeline?

The answer lies in using a modern solution to minimize friction while still blocking the majority of spam submissions. In this guide, we’ll look at the best solutions to prevent spam form submissions without irritating the visitors you’ve worked so hard to attract.

The best solutions to prevent spam form submissions

Spambots get more sophisticated by the day. To stop them and keep junk form submissions out of your inbox, you need solutions that are able to constantly adapt to changing threats. 

Let’s look at the top options:

Method	User Friction	Setup Difficulty	Effectiveness vs. AI Bots	Best For
Akismet	Zero (Invisible)	Easy (Plugin or API)	High (99.99%)	All websites and apps
Honeypot	Zero	Medium (Code)	Low	Small personal blogs
reCAPTCHA v3	Low	High (API Keys)	Medium	Tech-savvy users
Image CAPTCHA	High (Annoying)	Medium	Medium	Preventing basic brute force attacks
Email Verify	High (Double Opt-in)	Medium	High	User registration (not contact forms)

1. Akismet: A reliable AI-powered solution

Akismet, a widely-trusted anti-spam tool, leverages advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to filter out spam comments, unwanted form submissions, and other bot-submitted content. It boasts a 99.99% spam detection accuracy rate. Most impressively, it operates entirely in the background, so it never interferes with the site visitor’s experience. 

Integrating Akismet into your website requires just a few steps. On WordPress, all you need is a plugin. There are simple solutions for other content management systems and an open API for those with advanced needs. 

Compared to CAPTCHA, Akismet provides a much smoother experience for visitors and is a proven way to maximize form conversion rates. With a network of over 100 million active websites, Akismet is always up-to-date on the latest spam trends, but you can also manually review submissions and provide input to customize it for your site.

Akismet is one of the most widely-used anti-spam solutions for a reason and the go-to for many WordPress experts.

2. CAPTCHA: Simple, but with added friction

CAPTCHAs differentiate between humans and bots by presenting supposedly simple-for-people challenges that stump bots and automated scripts. However, in addition to having questionable success in preventing spam form submissions, CAPTCHAs also annoy site visitors. 

They add friction that diminishes the visitor experience and reduces form completion rates. Plus, they pose serious complications for those with vision, hearing, or fine motor impairments. Given these drawbacks, alternative solutions to CAPTCHA like Akismet work better, especially since they don’t disrupt the user experience. 

3. Honeypot fields: A decent, limited option

A honeypot is a hidden form field (generally using CSS display:none) that human users cannot see, but bots (which scan HTML code) will fill out.

How it works: If the hidden field contains data upon submission, the form is rejected.

The Downside: Smart bots now detect fields labeled display:none and skip them. To make this work today, you often need complex JavaScript obfuscation, which requires technical maintenance.

Verdict: Good for blocking basic bots, fails against advanced bots and AI-powered scrapers. 

4. Session cookies: Complex and potentially unreliable

Marketers and site owners use cookies for many purposes, including site optimization and tracking user behavior. Some sites rely on session cookies to monitor interactions and detect suspicious activity that mimics a bot.

A few issues arise when using this technique though, especially as a standalone tool for preventing spam form submissions. For one, implementing session cookies takes work and even so, advanced bots mimic human behavior to evade detection. Alongside that, many legitimate visitors disable cookies due to privacy concerns. 

Generally speaking, limit your reliance on cookies to avoid raising privacy concerns among your website audience. If you do employ them, make sure you give site visitors an opportunity to opt in or out of their use, and maintain transparency about your cookie-based tracking activities. 

5. Email verification: A major burden for users

Email verification helps prevent spam form submissions by requiring people to confirm their email addresses. After submitting a contact form, people receive a verification link in their inbox. Clicking the link validates the email, ensuring that only real users, not bots, complete the submission.

However, this approach functions as a “double opt-in” process, adding extra steps for those who already decided to submit a form or comment. This leads to decreased form completion rates and deters legitimate interactions. 

6. Email and keyword filtering: Basic and time-sensitive 

Finally, filtering submissions based on specific email addresses or keywords blocks known spam sources. However, you have to constantly monitor and maintain your database of email addresses to ensure accuracy. 

What’s more, spammers easily circumvent these filters by using new email addresses or altering their messages. Email and keyword filtering requires a significant amount of manual effort and only provides mediocre results. 

Why CAPTCHA is not ideal for spam prevention

More than 13 million websites use CAPTCHA as of 2023. A significant number, yes, and with so many websites using CAPTCHAs, adding them to your website may seem like a good idea.

However, many site owners find that CAPTCHA causes more problems than it solves. CAPTCHAs are not the best option because they’re:

Often frustrating for genuine users

CAPTCHAs block spam form submissions, but they also block a lot of real users. CNBC reports that 19% of U.S. adults have abandoned online transactions upon encountering CAPTCHAs. 

Another study revealed that CAPTCHAs are often more difficult and take longer to solve than expected. A loose correlation was also found between abandonment rates and CAPTCHAs that required multiple attempts to solve. 

When a person decides to fill out a form or comment on your content, you need to make the process simple. Any friction at this stage can undo all the effort it took to get them there. 

Increasingly bypassed by modern spambots

Most people concede that CAPTCHAs are bothersome, but think, “Well, at least they work!” 

Unfortunately, they fail more often than you might expect. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, conducted a CAPTCHA study involving 1,400 people that showed CAPTCHAs to be ineffective. 

Each participant completed ten tests on 120 of the 200 most popular sites in the world, each of which made use of various types of CAPTCHAs, including distorted text, puzzle sliders, and image recognition. Researchers measured each participant’s accuracy and speed while simultaneously using bots to complete the same CAPTCHAs. 

The researchers found that the bots had a near-perfect solve rate on distorted-text CAPTCHA tests and a near-instant response, solving the problems in under a second. Human participants didn’t do nearly as well, requiring up to 15 seconds to solve each CAPTCHA, with accuracy rates ranging from 50% to 84%. 

Inferior to several available alternatives 

For years, CAPTCHAs successfully blocked spam form submissions and other types of spam. However, spammers adapted, rendering CAPTCHAs ineffective. To compensate, developers made CAPTCHAs more difficult, but instead of improving security, these changes only frustrated site visitors.

Thankfully, better options exist to prevent spam form submissions. Akismet works in the background to analyze, flag, and stop spam without disrupting the visitor experience. With 99.99% accuracy, it outperforms CAPTCHAs while keeping forms easy to use. 

Akismet: The best anti-spam solution (that doesn’t annoy users)

Several factors make Akismet the best tool to prevent spam form submissions. First, it provides set-it-and-forget-it automatic spam detection. This feature shifts the burden off your content management team’s shoulders and allows them to focus on more important tasks like optimizing the on-site experience.

As previously mentioned, Akismet works in the background, meaning it won’t negatively impact legitimate users, nor will it hurt your conversion rates. 

To top it all off, Akismet integrates easily with any website. Its WordPress plugin simplifies setup, while its API ensures compatibility with popular content management systems like Drupal and Joomla. 

Frequently asked questions

Interested in learning more about ways to prevent spam form submissions? Read the answers to commonly asked questions below.

How do I stop form spam without using CAPTCHA?

Use an invisible, accessibility-friendly solution like Akismet. To block basic spambots, a honeypot can be efficient, but it won’t efficiently block advanced bots. Add a CAPTCHA-style challenge only when targeted abuse persists.

Why do honeypots stop working sometimes?

Basic bots fill every field, so honeypots catch them. More advanced bots can detect hidden fields or submit directly to endpoints, which is why you need server-side validation and throttling too.

What’s the best option for accessibility and conversions?

Invisible filtering like Akismet typically delivers the best UX. Traditional CAPTCHAs can block legitimate users, especially on mobile and for accessibility needs.

Is there a way to prevent spam without affecting user experience?

Yes, solutions like Akismet operate behind the scenes to identify and filter out spam comments without adding unnecessary friction to the user experience. Don’t inundate your visitors with annoying CAPTCHAS. Use Akismet to stop spam while real visitors enjoy your site. 

Are there any plugins or tools specifically for WordPress forms to prevent spam?

Akismet has a plugin designed specifically for WordPress forms that makes spam form prevention even easier. It integrates easily with most reputable form plugins, providing seamless spam protection across different form builders. Once integrated, Akismet automatically checks all comments and filters out any that appear to be spam.