STOP Spam Email Today
Are you tired of getting spam email from your WordPress website? I’m pretty sure you are.
Chances are, the majority of the spam emails you are getting, go directly into the spam folder. That can’t be helped, because most email providers such as Microsoft and Google have their own methods to try and combat spam email reaching your inbox.
The problem with emails being marked as spam, is that legitimate emails get marked as spam, and if you’re like most people, you’ll just ignore emails that have gone into your spam folder, which in turn means that you may be missing out on job opportunities [ if your website is for business ] meaning less income.
Going so far as providing a CAPTCHA on your contact form, will not really prevent spammers sending you messages through your contact form, they’ll simply enter the CAPTCHA and hit send.
We need to put up some speed bumps to slow these spammers down. If you put up some speed bumps, the spammers won’t worry about you because you are too much hard work, and know you won’t respond anyway.
Email spammers base their ‘efforts’ on the law of average. According to a report from Sitepoint.com in 2008, spammers get a response just once for every 12.5 million emails they send — a response rate of 0.000008%. Despite that, though, spammers are still able to turn a profit. This is the reason why you get so much spam – it’s a numbers game.
Step One; I have always suggested [ and swear by it ], that the email you use for your Contact Form on your WordPress website, should contain a mix of words and numbers, such as arnie34by20sky7@…. for example. Nobody is going to think of an email like this, and nobody needs to know about it – it’s just an email address to forward emails to you from your WordPress website.
Step Two; Set up an email verification function. In doing this, the person attempting to contact you is required to enter all their information on the form, then enter their email address and click ‘confirm email’, then they need to go to their email client and retrieve the code and enter the code on your contact form – the code may be sent straight away, or they might have to wait a few minutes. For spammers, it’s a non-starter. Your website will be ignored, saving you from getting spam, therefore saving you time and money.
The total number of spam emails I’ve received since implementing this function is – 0. Prior to setting up this function, spam wasn’t really out of control by any means, but I would still get a dozen or so spam emails each day, even though I used a CAPTCHA!
If you are concerned that people will not contact you because of this ‘extra’ requirement on your contact form, don’t worry – if someone needs to contact you, they will. In a world where people try taking advantage of others, we all understand that these functions are now required.
If you would like me to set this up for you, please contact me.