Stopping Spam Bots

Stopping spam bots is something that needs to happen from time to time on WordPress websites especially. I had a client contact me yesterday about getting over 600 form submissions within a couple hours and was wondering what to do.

He was considering shutting down the form, but really there is an easier way to solve this. There’s no way that a human is doing all the submissions, it is definitely a spam bot.

Spam bots can be stopped by using a CAPTCHA form. CAPTCHA forms require a human to actually fill out the form and stops spam bots from being able to submit multiple forms, or any at all.

Why do you spam bots wanna hit the forms?

Spam bots are out there spamming sites trying to get links submitted to a website. There are SEO companies out there that are very shady that will use bots to try and spam WordPress websites to get links on the sites and sell those links.

If your website happens to get hit with this, you will have pages filled with links to all kinds of nonsense that are not related to your website. This is a real problem for your search optimization and for your brand aesthetic.

To stop this, make sure that you have a firewall and security on your server and that you are updating plugins and WordPress theme regularly. We have firewall built into all of our servers here at SkyPoint and update all plugins and themes for our clients.

In addition to this, you may want to add the Limit Login Attempts plugin as well. This plugin blocks bots from trying to crack the login to the site. Additionally, it can be a good idea to add the WordFence plugin, as that stops attacks and blocks bad IP addresses.

Have a question about how to stop spam bots? Drop me a line on my contact page and I will help you get through the issue!

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Written by: Jophiel Silvestrone

Jophiel Silvestrone has written 326 posts in the Tech Blog.

Jophiel grew up on a ranch in Paradise Valley, Montana near Chico Hot Springs. Working on the ranch instilled work ethic and self motivation. Filled with this drive, Jophiel started mowing the local school's yards twice a month throughout the summers, at the age of 12. He moved to Billings in 2004, where he has been deeply involved in the local business community ever since. A serial entrepreneur, Jophiel has ran multiple businesses in our local community. The first business, a janitorial and carpet cleaning company, founded in 2005, has employed over 50 locals. Moving on to the media industry, Jophiel and several partners founded Green Directory Montana in the spring of 2007. Green Directory's sustainability ranking software awarded points based on sustainable or "green" actions. These points counted towards a business's total "Green Score," which in turn ranked them against other businesses in their category and throughout the entire site. It also featured a limited edition print version distributed annually. A business acquisition allowed Jophiel to focus on new projects, and a few close business colleagues and Jophiel started Rocky Mountain Mr. & Ms. Magazine, a lifestyle publication for men and women in the Magic City. After a year and a half at the helm of RM3 Magazine, the business was purchased. He now runs a web development company SkyPoint Studios and fathers his son Jaoquin, who plays football, basketball, soccer, and is learning snowboarding from his dad. Recently, has expanded to locations in Havasu, Arizona & Vegas. SkyPoint Studios is a market leader in both Billings & Havasu and Jophiel is working on building that same level of market dominance in Vegas. Specialties: Extensive experience in online and offline business. Especially savvy at WordPress, and operate several sites, one example is the blog: skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com/tech-blog. Check out skypointwebdesignbillingsmontana.com for the latest projects from SkyPoint Studios.