Stopping SPAM on the Contact Form

[PhillipC]

Hi guys

Thought Shopify has bulit-in captcha that appears when you get two sign ups from the same OP within 24 hours which should take care of most issues? 

Anyway, based on JasonC's (Shopify Staff) reply on 28/11/2018, we implemented the Honeypot Trap technique on the contact form on our website. I got a programmer to help us insert the coding into the contact form on 1st Oct 2019. The programmer inserted the invisible field just above the phone field. In reality this field is hidden from the human eyes, only bots can see them. If bots fill in the field, then we will know it's spam and the contact form will reject it. We tested it using www.sparktraffic.com (2 hour free testing). During that 2 hour no spam came through.

So now we have double spam filters built-in to our contact form - recaptcha and Honeypot trap. Our site is rather new and just launched yesterday so it'll take some time to see if the double filters are working or if any bot spam emails are getting through. 

But we do not have filters to prevent bot spam emails getting through our newsletter subscription section yet. 

Hope these information is useful for anyone wanting to try the Honeypot trap. 

Best Regards

Phillip C

Merchant on Shopify

[JasonC]

Hey, @PhillipC!

Jason here from Shopify Support. Congratulations on your store launch!

Thanks for testing out the Honeypot Trap technique and letting us know how it has gone so far. I'm excited to hear that it has stopped the spams during the testing period. Keep us posted on how it goes! For the merchants who want to reinforce the spam filter at the stores, I highly recommend this method as it's effective combining with our built-in captcha to stop spams. 

Thank you so much again for sharing your valuable experience. Wishing you great success and lots of sales to come! 

Best,

Jason

[Juliet_Bowen]

Hi Jason, 

Reading through this thread I must have missed something. You had mentioned in your last post "with our built-in captcha ". Where is the built-in captcha? We use the minimal theme and just started getting hit with spambots. 

[JasonC]

Hey, @Juliet_Bowen!

Great question and you didn't miss anything. This built-in feature was automatically applied to your store when it launched and it wasn't part of the theme. That's why you can't enable or disable it in your theme editor.

Unless you've contacted our support regarding disabling it, the captcha feature is active in your store. Bear in mind that this feature only gets triggered if someone/bot from the same IP address fills out the form more than once in a 24-hour span. If the bot is changing its IP address while filling out the form, the feature won't be able to filter the spam out. 

Best, 

Jason

[juan3211]

Hi,

thanks a lot @PhillipC for your explanation.

I know how to include a hidden input in the contact form, but .... how do you do "the contact form will reject it" ? Is it done in shopfiy theme code or in your email client?

Hope your answer and thanks a lot.

[Acer7458]

I keep getting these emails too - on a daily basis.  It is so annoying and you can't easily ask them to remove you from their list.  Can Shopify filter them somehow?

[PhillipC]

Hi Juan

The codes were entered into page.contact.liquid 

If you need help with the coding I can refer you to the programmer that I use. 

Hope that helps.  

I only received notification from Shopify about your post this morning. Not sure why there is such a long delay. 

Best Regards

Phillip

[ShopPG]

Hi Jason

Does it work?? i'm still getting fake customers everyday, getting a bit tired of it all 

[JasonC]

Hey, Nigel (@ShopPG)!

Thanks for reaching out. According to @PhillipC, it works. Feel free to consult with @PhillipC or Shopify Experts if you wish to set the method up. One of the developers can help you set it up with a contracted fee. Keep us posted on your progress! 

Best,

Jason

[im4ace]

@JasonC

Hi! I've been reviewing multiple threads on bot account creations which I'm also being affected.  I didn't realize this until I started looking at the "Mail Delivery System" emails and noticed these fake accounts.  I've had numerous contacts with Shopify Support resulting in the same solution as others in these message threads are receiving.  

I'm wanting to insert the honeypot technique into my store's account creation, login, and contact us pages.  I'm savy enough to add the code into the forms, but need the exact code, placement, and form name so I can get this installed. I've deleted over 50 + fake bot accounts within the last week and don't want to add ReCAPTCHA to keep a better user experience.  Any HELP on this would be great!  And....PLEASE pass on to Shopify allowing merchants to disable new account creation Welcome emails. These fake bot accounts do use vaild email address which are spamming people and using "our" brand; it's very detrimental to everyone!  

Thank you and I look forward to any help! Happy Thanksgiving! 

Dina