FormBlocker™ Features

WEB CONTACT FORM SPAM FILTERING

Instead of direct emails, Spammers have increasingly switched to using web forms to try to bypass spam filters. Usually business owners prioritize their own incoming web form email messages such that they are rarely filtered (blocked) and those contact form email notifications make it to the top of their email inbox. There are a very few spam filters that address the specific problems of web forms, but only address one or two tricks that spammers utilize.

FormBlocker™ is a set of tools that not only address the web form spam issue, but also make your web forms more usable and convenient.
Our selectable levels of spam filtering is very flexible and easy to use. For instance, you can choose to have your form scanned by our FormScan™ Spam Algorithm and depending on the contents of our FormBlocker Spammer live database and other factors, and a Captcha "password" can be inserted into the user's form - thus for the no-risk viewer, no captcha aggravation is inserted.

There are two general types of WebForm spam:

  1. Those that advertise a (real) product, and try to slip by spam filters by using a webform instead of direct email
  2. Those that are gibberish, and even tho the message sent may contain a URL web link, it is gibberish (no one understands why these exist, or why someone would put the energy into programming the scripts to send them since they have no monetary benefit for any purpose - some people think it's competitors or a foreign concern trying to use up resources, but those theories don't hold much water for us)

FormBlocker Spam-filtering Features

Often spammers will have automated scripts that search out contact web forms and fill them in (sometimes randomly) and the automated script then "clicks" on SUBMIT to send the message to the site owner, thinking that emailed forms of this nature will have a higher chance of getting read by the site owner since it could be new business for the owner. Unfortunately traditional spam filters in general will not be able to sort out spam via this mechanism because the from address is your own address within your hosting account. FormBlocker™ has various levels of features that are pretty successful at filtering out these unwanted spams.

  • Various levels and mechanisms help manage the tradeoffs between: Risk of missing a new customer entry vs. spam filtering severity
  • Live monitoring of our system traps so that recent (confirmed) spammer's data can be compared with your incoming data and your spam is trapped
  • Filter based on content, FROM email address, IP address/Country
  • Optional CAPTCHA: never, all the time, or only inserted in the flow if the data is suspect
  • Option to save entries that were labeled as spam so you can re-check them later just in case
  • Remote hosting available (and thus no scripts to install)
  • Optional filtering time delay or time-of-day filtering, such that, for instance, messages are queued until 8:00am each morning at which time filtering decisions are made based on all the overnight spam library data
  • Live statistics viewable

 

FORM CONVENIENCES

(Unique to FB)

  • Information entered from web form is sent to your email address and/or stored in a database for later retrieval/sorting
  • A variety of input fields are possible: text field, text area box, checkboxes & radio buttons, dropdown menus, slider scales (ex: scale of 1 to 10), 2-D area (ex: graph or color spectrum), linked database options, custom options
  • Web form customer data can have field content in the emailed message, or the email is just an alert that a form was entered and optionally a URL to view the database contents in a web page
  • Emailed content can be custom formatted, based on a defined template
  • Optional database repository:
    • never miss/lose a message due to email problems
    • sortable
    • optional status flags: ex: read/responded by which staff member
  • A myriad of form gadgets possible:
    • Calendar entry
    • expandable textarea form entry area (many web forms supply a tiny area; we suggest a large area that is further expandable by a click on EXPAND AREA)
    • Chained (hierarchical) selects
    • Textarea char limit progress bar (how many chars left that user is permitted to type, and a bar graph)
    • Disable SUBMIT button until some validation rule has been met (e.g., enter email address)
    • Submit Once feature to protect against multiple repetitive submissions
    • Accept terms checkbox protection
    • etc.

 

 

 

Tips For How Not to Design Forms

Whether it's a contact/lead-generation form, complaint, inquiry, or order submission, viewers are in a hurry and don't have the patience to fiddle with finicky forms.

  • Never include the [RESET] button - people can inadvertently click it by mistake and there's no recovery. If you must have a [SELF-DESRTUCT] button, place it far away from the normal mouse movements and viewing flow. (A famous example of poor placement is AOL's email reader button [REPORT SPAM] is adjacent to [DELETE MESSAGE] and often messages are reported as spam when they are just meant to be deleted.)
  • Allow an ample textarea for comments/feedback. A tiny box [forcing only one or two words per line] aggravates people at a time when you don't want to aggravate them (more)
  • Don't get fancy with coloring the background or making the font size too small - make it easy to let people see what they're typing
  • Allow appropriate sizes for fields - a 50-character size for a 2-letter state abbreviation may align nicely for your graphic layout, but is not intuitive for filling in only two letters.
  • Don't split up information unnecessarily - there's little use to have two fields for First and Last names - if your database stores them separately, then try to split the name programmatically. For phone numbers, it's aggravating to type 3 + 3 + 4 digits in each field, especially if your tab order is out of sequence.
    It's all a tradeoff of aggravation(ease) vs. incremental data clarity.
  • If you have category dropdown lists, make sure there are ample entries to cover all aspects. It's frustrating to visit a form where none of the choices fit what you need.
  • Don't get cute with the label for the [SUBMIT] button. We saw one labeled [I'm Done] and didn't know what that meant.
  • Use intuitive/clear labels for the fields, and position them adjacent to the field it's labelling.
  • Make sure your tab order is intuitive and that Shift-Tab works properly for those who are keyboard-shortcut junkies.

 

DOs and DON'Ts for BUSINESS WEB FORMS

A webform on a web page allows a viewer (customer) to enter data that will be sent to a server for processing (typically the business's email, sometimes copied to a database for archiving). Webforms resemble paper forms because web site viewers can fill out the forms using checkboxes, radio buttons, or text fields. For example, webforms can be used to send an inquiry about a business's products or services, or to enter information toward making an online purchase. In database or other interactive situations, web forms are used to convey data used to retrieve information from a database or search mechanism.

Webforms are defined in formal programming languages such as HTML, Perl, Java or .NET.  

In the most common usage of forms on web sites, a viewer fills in the desired information and that data is then emailed to the business owner. The specific usage of email is not particularly known nor important to the person filling out the form - they just want their information conveyed. Unfortunately the generic web form as used by many web designers can suffer from the following aggravations or sub-optimal results:

Please contact us for an economical and customized solution for your needs.