Form Spam is an ever-growing problem. But we can help you combat form spam.
Keep in mind that spam protection and all anti-spam efforts will always be a cat-and-mouse game against professinal spammers,
so you will always have to keep up with the latest in spam protection and anti-spam methods. (Also see: email
spam solutions.)
What is Form Spam?
Form Spam is when spambots (spam robots) have scoured websites and discovered a form on your website that they can spam.
Spamming a form involves having the spambot automatically fill out the various fields on your form with a variety of useless
and unwanted garbage. Form spam is often used to promote links to unpalatable websites such as porn sites, casino and
gambling sites and drug and vitamin supplement type sites. So when your contact or inquiry form starts receiving all
kinds of garbage response, then you know your website form has been found by a spambot.
One of the best ways to combat form spam is to implement a CAPTCHA intercept. CAPTCHA is the small image that you
see on some forms that has all kinds of distorted letters and numbers. The CAPTCHA code changes each time a new visitor
comes to the website form.
The person filling out the form must then enter, in an adjacent text field, those distorted CAPTCHA letters and numbers exactly as
they appear in the image. When they click on "Submit", the form will then go through to the website owner only if the
CAPTCHA code was matched exactly. If there is not an exact match, then the person filling out the form is usually kicked back
to the form to try again.
CAPTCHA works because, so far, spambots have not been able to decipher the image of distorted letters and numbers
contained in the CAPTCHA code. Optical character recognition doesn't work because of the distortions. The slimeball
masters of spam, however, are diligently working on means to overcome CAPTCHA. One method they're trying is to
hire low cost workers in less developed countries to create databases of CAPTCHA images with their corresponding alpha-numeric
codes so that their spam programs can use quick image comparisons to cross reference with the deciphered code in the database.
So CAPTCHA images will always need to updated and the library of CAPTCHA images will need to outpace the efforts of the professional
spammers.
We can route your form through a third party CAPTCHA provider that intercepts the form submission until the CAPTCHA image
code is entered correctly. Since a spam-bot cannot fill out a CAPTCHA intercept correctly, form spam should not get
through to you. We have successfully implemented this solution already for some of our customers.
We use a third party CAPTCHA provider so that we'll be assured of always having updated and increasing numbers of CAPTCHA
images so that we always help you stay ahead of the spammers. There are solutions where you can download your own CAPTCHA
image library and implement those on your website, but then you're forever stuck with the limited number of images available,
and the clock will always be ticking down on you in such a situation.
Additionally, we overcome a very common but very serious problem with CAPTCHA. We've all seen CAPTCHA that is very
difficult to decipher. But for the visually impaired, CAPTCHA is often a near impossible obstacle. So to
comply with website useability standards, there are means of making CAPTCHA more universally user friendly. The solution
we offer at Baer Marketing includes the option to hear an audio announcement of the CAPTCHA code. Additionally, there
is an option to regenerate a different CAPTCHA image that might be easier for the user to decipher. Many CAPTCHA solutions
do not offer these two important elements, so make sure that your solution does!
CAPTCHA seems like a rather strange acronym. It stands for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers
and humans apart". It was developed at Carnegie Mellon University.
Interesting Links
ReCAPTCHA.NET - a website offering a third party plug-in solution and a very interesting use of CAPTCHA ... when
a person filling out a form enters a CAPTCHA code, they're actually helping digitize scanned content for creating
a huge digital library of old books.
What does Turing mean? - According to Wikipedia, Alan Turing is often considered the father of modern computer science. Some of his theories
of artificial intelligence are used in the CAPTCHA method.
CAPTCHA.biz - another CAPTCHA solution for those computer savvy individuals who want to mess with their website's code and implement
a self contained CAPTCHA solution on their own web server.
And, of course, a search for "Captcha" on any search engine will yield you many websites about Captcha.
The Baer
Marketing Network is an affordable, professional custom small business website design company offering internet marketing
and web site design primarily to small business and industrial B2B companies. Owner Brian Baer has extensive experience
with industrial marketing and helping manufacturing companies market on the internet. As website designers and internet
marketing services consultants Baer Marketing offers affordable, professional custom website design, website audits,
advanced website tracking and analytics (advanced hit counters), link building and link exchange management for link popularity
and Google Pagerank (PR), search engine optimization and search engine marketing (SEO and SEM), small quantity direct mail,
and internet consulting. We also provide phone and toll free ad tracking phone numbers and advertising ROI analysis.
The Baer
Marketing Network also hosts the Carolinas Industrial Directory. The Carolinas Industrial Directory is one of the most
comprehensive lists of industrial companies, manufacturing companies, and service companies / contractors serving the industrial
and manufacturing sectors. It includes companies located in North Carolina (NC) or South Carolina (SC) as well as those
industrial companies, manufacturing companies and service companies serving North Carolina, South Carolina or serving the
Southeast and Midatlantic states.
From our
location in Cary, North Carolina (NC) in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill Research Triangle area of North Carolina, we serve
companies nationwide as website designers and internet marketing consultants. In North Carolina, we are eager to serve
companies nearby including the cities throughout the Research Triangle area including Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Wake Forest,
Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay Varina, Clayton, Smithville and Garner. Other North Carolina cities include Zebulon,
Rocky Mount, Greenville, Goldsboro, Fayetteville, Pittsboro, Burlington, Greensboro, Winston Salem, Graham, High Point, Asheville,
Morrisville, Kinston, Jacksonville, Wilmington, Southern Pines, Roanoke Rapids, Elizabeth City, Kannapolis, Charlotte, Concord,
High Point, Asheville, Gastonia, Hickory and Boone.
In South
Carolina (SC) we serve companies in and around all of the following cities: Columbia, Charleston, North Charleston, Greenville,
Rock Hill, Mount Pleasant, Spartanburg, Sumter, Hilton Head Island, Florence, and more.
We also
serve a number of customers nationwide including in Virginia (VA), Chicago Illinois (IL), California (CA), New York (NY) and
Indiana (IN). As a South Bend, Indiana (IN) native, we are also happy to serve as website designers for companies throughout
the South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart, Goshen, Niles, and greater Michiana areas of northern Indiana (IN) and southwest Michigan
(MI). Additionally, with a family connection in southern Alabama near Pensacola, we are happy to serve as website designers
for companies in the Alabama (AL) Gulf Coast region including Foley, Gulf Shores, Lillian, Pensacola, Florida (FL).
