Form spam refers to unwanted, often automated, submissions through your website’s contact forms. Spammers use scripts or bots to send irrelevant messages, often promoting products, including harmful links, or attempting phishing. While these messages are rarely legitimate, they can overwhelm inboxes, waste time, and cause genuine enquiries to be overlooked.
Spammers are motivated by:
- attempting to advertise their services or products at no cost
- spreading malicious links to gain clicks or compromise security
- testing whether forms can be exploited for further attacks
For barristers’ chambers and professional services firms, the impact is more than inconvenience. A lost or ignored enquiry from a prospective client can have real costs.
Akismet and its role in spam protection
For clients with a support package, we provide an Akismet subscription. Akismet is a spam filtering service developed by Automattic, the for-profit company associated with WordPress. It works by checking form submissions against a constantly updated global database of spam to detect suspicious content.
Akismet is effective, but not perfect. It moves suspected spam into a dedicated Spam folder within your WordPress dashboard. Sometimes legitimate enquiries are flagged as spam – a “false positive” – which means you should log in periodically to WordPress, go to Forms > Entries, and check the spam folder to ensure no important messages have been lost.
Additional anti-spam measures
Beyond Akismet, there are other tools that can be added to Gravity Forms to reduce spam, including:
- Gravity Forms Zero Spam, which quietly filters out automated entries without user input
- Google reCAPTCHA, which asks users to confirm they are human before submitting
While effective, CAPTCHAs can be intrusive, especially for users who find the puzzles confusing or time-consuming.
Cloudflare Turnstile: a modern alternative
Cloudflare Turnstile offers a more user-friendly approach. It works in the background to verify that a visitor is genuine, usually without the need for any extra interaction. This means no distorted letters to type in several times in frustration.
Advantages include:
- smooth user experience with little disruption
- no need for Akismet, removing the risk of false positives
- backed by Cloudflare, a trusted internet security company
Potential downsides may include reliance on a third-party service, and the need for occasional updates or adjustments to keep it running smoothly.
How to set up Cloudflare Turnstile
Setting up Turnstile involves:
- Installing the Gravity Forms Cloudflare Turnstile add-om.
- Creating a free Cloudflare account (if you do not already have one)
- Adding your website domain to the account
- Registering a Turnstile site key and secret key
- Entering these keys into your Gravity Forms settings
If you prefer, we can handle the setup for you.
Using Turnstile analytics to measure effectiveness
One of the advantages of Turnstile is the analytics dashboard included within Cloudflare. This allows you to see how many challenges were presented, how many were solved, and how many automated attempts were blocked. Over time, these reports provide reassurance that the system is actively protecting your website while keeping the process seamless for real visitors.
This visibility helps demonstrate to chambers and law firms that the protection is not only working in the background but also measurable in terms of impact.
Choosing the right option for your website
The best approach to managing spam depends on your priorities. Akismet remains a strong option when combined with regular checks, as does Gravity Forms Zero Spam, while Google reCAPTCHA adds extra barriers for bots. For a smoother visitor experience, Cloudflare Turnstile provides modern protection without requiring interaction from genuine users.
Whatever the choice, it is important for law firms and chambers to have robust spam protection in place. This safeguards valuable enquiries, reduces wasted time, and ensures your website continues to present a professional and reliable point of contact for potential clients.
