Ideally your form system takes care of the spam for you, but it’s often not that simple. For example, many form systems require an add-on plugin to handle the anti-spam piece, or they leverage the ReCapcha system. All of which is fine unless it doesn’t work consistently. We’ve had numerous issues over the years with various form solutions and ReCapcha, so if it works for you great, but our experience hasn’t been ideal.
Form makers also change over time. Caldera was a leading form solution, but they were recently acquired by Ninja Forms, and looking at the ticket and discussion boards, a lot of users with issues are having their questions sit unanswered. Solid and timely customer service is a crucial component when choosing a vendor. Otherwise if something goes wrong you’re on your own! That is frustrating and gets costly quick.
On a web manager thread re: best anti-spam solutions, I saw a few people mention CleanTalk so we implemented it on our site. The spam submissions stopped immediately. We then recommended it to our clients with the worst spam problems, and they signed up, clearing up their issues immediately. Finally we went ahead and subscribed to an agency license, so we can provide the service to clients who do hosting and/or site maintenance with us.
What’s it take to get up and running? On WordPress (for example), you install and activate the CleanTalk plugin, then via the CleanTalk site admin, you click “Add a Site,” enter the URL, and that’s it! It works regardless of whether you’re using Contact Form 7, Caldera, Ninja Forms, Gravity Forms, built in theme forms like the Divi contact form, etc.
If you’re a business owner with a single site, it’s only $12/year (not month, year) to cover your site. [Pricing as of 9/23/22] Three websites is $24/year, a minimal expense compared to the benefit of not having to worry about missing legitimate queries and leads because you’ve gotten used to ignoring the 20 bogus notifications you get every day!
Agencies can pay between $115-$200 year to cover 20-40 website respectively. [Pricing as of 9/23/22]. There’s also an unlimited sites plan.
TL;Dr version: stop the spam super quick for super cheap. They have a trial so you can see for yourself: CleanTalk anti-spam
Need help with your website forms or any other aspect of your web site or web marketing? Contact us or call at (360) 597-6885.