Blank form submissions and spam form submissions (those that are full of gobbledegook) are the results of bots (automated programs) submitting the forms.
These bots come across the page that enables your form to send and submits blank forms or forms full of rubbish.
The bots that send gobbledegook are blindly trying every form they can in order to send SPAM mail. The blank ones are there simply to annoy you and waste your time.
A bot will use a form to send spam emails.
They are basically trying to sell something, increase their website hits, find out if an email address exists or take your money.
How can I stop receiving blank forms?
You CAN lessen these blank forms by adding a CAPTCHA code to your form.
CAPTCHA code is a set of hard to read letters or numbers that the person submitting your form has to type correctly before the form will send.
This method can prove annoying to real humans who are trying to submit your form, but they do stop the bots from sending you blank or spam form submissions.
You have to ask yourself – is stopping the annoying blank/spam messages worth the risk of annoying your potential customers?
However, humans seem to be much more used to filling in these boxes now, it’s almost second nature. It also depends on your audience – are they techie? Would they bother or go away?
Unless you are suffering under an unmanageable stream of blank or spam messages, hold off from using the CAPTCHA method for as long as you can.
Blank emails are a small price to pay for keeping customers happy.
Are there any other ways to stop bots from visiting my web page?
Another way to stop some bots is to use a file called robot.txt. Ask me to upload the file to your server, or make sure you include something like the following;
User-agent: *
Disallow: /enquiries.php
Disallow: /thank-you.php
Just email to ask me about either/both of the above.
