Someone spamming our websites through contact form

13 replies
I'm puzzled and hoping that someone can shed some light.

We have many of our own websites and we also host websites for our local business clients. The client's sites have no links to our sites so they are not connected in any way.

Every once in a while, we'll get spammed through the contact form submission to many of the sites. Usually, it's somebody trying to sell us some SEO or internet marketing service. Today, I had 10 submissions come through for a twitter service.

What I don't get is how do they happen to find our websites and our clients sites at the same time. Is it just the fact that we happen to appear on some scraped list and they blast so many that we happen to get a good number of them? It's just strange because the statistical probability of several of our client websites being on 1 list should be very small.

Any thoughts?
#contact #form #spamming #websites
  • Profile picture of the author visimedia
    I don't have a technical solution for this but for manua; way I think we can temporarily shut the contact us page down for few days just to make sure they're not spamming you again.
    Or you can find a way to block the certain IP or anything that you can trace him not to visit the page again.
    Signature

    For best hostel in malang https://bedpackers.com & mold inspectors orlando : https://waterdamagerestorationorland...d-inspections/

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451376].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author talfighel
      Originally Posted by visimedia View Post

      temporarily shut the contact us page down for few days just to make sure they're not spamming you again.
      Maybe that would work. Then they will just move on and not bother you. See if that works out.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451553].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
        Originally Posted by talfighel View Post

        Maybe that would work. Then they will just move on and not bother you. See if that works out.
        Do this and you potentially lose genuine leads.

        Not a very bright idea.
        Signature

        BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451565].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author talfighel
          Originally Posted by John Romaine View Post

          Do this and you potentially lose genuine leads.

          Not a very bright idea.
          Or maybe she should let clients be able to only call her.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7452000].message }}
          • I don't think I'd want to shut down the contact form.

            We regularly get inquiries from the form and while our phone number is on top of every page, I'd say we get 1 phone call for each 9 contact form submissions.

            I was actually surprised by this, but it's the same for most of our clients. It seems that people just don't like or are scared of the phone calls.

            I never expected this in some industries, such as local service companies. We have couple painting contractors as clients, and they get close to 100% of their leads through contact forms. I personally would rather call a painting contractor when I want to talk to them and ask questions. Instead, people fill out the form and say that they want a quote on painting and want a call back. Strange to me, but yet is a fact.
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7452202].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    If this is one of the contact pages that is getting hammered, then you need *quite desperately* to get a CAPTCHA on there, pronto.

    Contact Strategic Marketing Academy | Strategic Marketing Academy

    Forget about where they're coming from, do that first.
    Signature

    BS free SEO services, training and advice - SEO Point

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451386].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author marketingmaniac
    Here is an idea also in addition to the CAPTCHA idea, limit the number of charachters that can be typed into the body of the submission form, this can also cut your spam submissions down considerably, assuming you have access to controlling this in your submission form.

    I hope this helps!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451573].message }}
    • Originally Posted by marketingmaniac View Post

      Here is an idea also in addition to the CAPTCHA idea, limit the number of charachters that can be typed into the body of the submission form, this can also cut your spam submissions down considerably, assuming you have access to controlling this in your submission form.

      I hope this helps!
      Interesting idea. Haven't thought of that. Thank you.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[7451654].message }}

Trending Topics