Are you experiencing bot activity on your landing pages?

If you're looking to build a healthy contact list for your business, having a generic signup form on your website can be an effective strategy. However, this also opens the door for spambots to fill out your forms or for fake signups that can complicate your marketing campaigns.

To prevent spambots and keep your forms protected without making it too complicated for regular users, below we will recommend some effective techniques you can use:

• Use a CAPTCHA: This can prevent bots from filling out your forms by requiring users to solve a challenge that only humans can complete.

• Add a honey-pot field: By adding a hidden field that only bots will fill out, you can detect and reject bot submissions.

• Validate email addresses (or other data in your form): By using email and other data validation techniques, you can ensure that the email addresses other data fields submitted are real and prevent fake signups.

By implementing these techniques, you can protect your forms from bots and keep your contact lists healthy. This will help you gain genuine subscribers or contacts and grow your business effectively.

What is a spambot?

The type of bot that fills in false information to your forms is often called a form spam bot, also known as a form filler bot or a form submission bot. These bots are designed to automatically fill out forms on websites with fake or misleading information, typically for the purpose of causing annoyance, disrupting business operations, or gathering sensitive data. Form spam bots can also be used to create fake accounts, generate fake leads, or skew online polls or surveys. To prevent form spam bots from filling in your forms, many websites and online platforms use various methods such as CAPTCHAs, hidden fields, or email verification to prevent automated spam submissions.

How do I prevent bots?

Preventing bots from filling out online forms can be crucial in maintaining the integrity of the data collected. We are currently assessing options to add additional measures to prevent bot submits. Here are a few recommendations we have for preventing bots from submitting your forms.

1. reCAPTCHA: One effective ways to prevent bot submissions is by using a CAPTCHA. CAPTCHAs, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, are designed to distinguish between humans and bots by requiring the user to complete a simple task that is difficult for bots to perform.

While some older versions of CAPTCHAs required users to decipher distorted letters or numbers, newer versions have simplified this process by asking users to check a box that confirms they are a human. This is made possible through intelligent programming that can detect bot-like behavior and prompt the user to complete the CAPTCHA. One popular and free service that provides CAPTCHA protection is reCAPTCHA.

2. Add a honey-pot field: To prevent bots from filling out your online forms, you can use an unseen extra field or a "honey-pot". This involves adding an additional field to your form that bots will see and automatically fill out, but real human users won't. By detecting any data entered in this field, you can easily filter out bot submissions and protect your forms.

Implementing a honey-pot field can be done by adding HTML and styling it using CSS. While some advanced bots can now read CSS and JavaScript, this method is still effective and worth considering if you have some basic programming skills. Here's an example code snippet:

CSS:

.dispnon{display: none;}

HTML:

<input class="dispnon" name="field_name" type="text">

The key is to ensure that the honey-pot field is hidden from real users, so it doesn't add any extra steps or confusion. You can customize the field name and its properties to suit your needs. A quick online search can provide more examples and tutorials if you're interested in exploring this method further.

You can now use javascript in the landing page or regex within the MindFire form configuration to validate against the data in this field.

3. Validate email addresses (or other data in your form): 

There are various techniques available to verify the accuracy and authenticity of the data being submitted through your online forms. One approach is to validate the format and content of the email address by implementing a double opt-in process, requiring users to confirm their email before proceeding. The MindFire platform also offers the ability to use Regex to identify and prevent suspicious data submissions, tailored to the specific behavior of the bot. However, it is important to note that applying data validation policies may potentially block legitimate submissions that do not meet the validation criteria.

What is MindFire doing?

The MindFire Platform is currently secured by a WAF for enhanced protection against potential attacks and malicious activity. A WAF, or Web Application Firewall, is a security tool designed to protect web applications from various forms of cyber threats, including malicious bot activity. A WAF typically sits in front of web servers and filters out malicious traffic before it reaches the application.

By analyzing incoming traffic to a web application, a WAF can detect and block malicious bots from accessing the site or submitting spammy form submissions. It can also identify and block other types of suspicious behavior that could indicate bot activity, such as an unusually high number of requests in a short amount of time or the use of known bot user agents.

WAFs use a variety of techniques to identify and block malicious traffic, including signature-based detection, behavior-based analysis, and machine learning algorithms. With the right configuration, a WAF can effectively prevent many types of bot activity on a website, helping to ensure the security and integrity of the site and its users.

At MindFire, we are dedicated to staying ahead of the game when it comes to preventing spambot activity. With the constant advancements in artificial intelligence, bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated. That's why we are continuously researching new methods and technologies to keep our platform at the forefront of the fight against spambots.

Protect your forms

While it's unfortunate, the reality is that spam is a persistent issue that's unlikely to go away anytime soon. However, there are steps you can take to mitigate its impact. By implementing one or more of the methods mentioned, you can save yourself time and effort in the long run. While using a combination of different methods may be the most effective, even something as simple as a reCAPTCHA checkbox can help prevent spambots without adding complexity to your sign-up process.

If you have any questions regarding your MindFire account, don't hesitate to reach out to our friendly and fast Customer Success team for assistance.