Email Hygiene: Practices to Keep Your Inbox Clean

Spam emails from contact forms are a common issue for many websites. Here’s why they happen and how they are generated:

Why You Get Spam Emails:

1. Automated Bots: Most spam comes from automated bots programmed to crawl the web and submit forms with spam content. These bots can indiscriminately target any form they find.
2. Manual Spamming: Sometimes, individuals manually enter spam into forms to promote something or attempt phishing attacks.
3. Vulnerabilities in Form Design: If your contact form lacks adequate security measures, it becomes an easy target for bots and spammers.
4. Lack of CAPTCHA or Anti-Spam Measures: Without mechanisms like CAPTCHA or honeypot fields, your form is more susceptible to automated submissions.
5. Exposure to Web Crawlers: If your contact form or its details (like email addresses) are easily accessible or indexable by web crawlers, it might attract more spam.

How Spam Emails Are Generated:

1. Automated Submission by Bots: Bots use algorithms to find and fill out website forms. They typically submit generic messages or content stuffed with links, often unrelated to your website.
2. Exploiting Weak Validation: Spammers exploit forms that don’t validate input properly. For example, a form that doesn’t check for a valid email format might get submissions with nonsensical email addresses.
3. Script Injection: Sometimes, spam emails are generated through scripts injected into forms, aiming to exploit vulnerabilities for malicious purposes.
4. Email Harvesting: Spammers sometimes use forms to confirm active email addresses. When you respond to spam, it confirms your email is active, potentially leading to more spam.

How to Prevent It:

1. Implement CAPTCHA: Adding a CAPTCHA can significantly reduce automated spam.
2. Use Honeypot Fields: Invisible to users but detectable by bots; these fields help identify and block automated submissions.
3. Form Validation: Ensure your form validates input correctly (like checking email format).
4. Limit Form Accessibility: Make the form less accessible to automated crawlers, possibly through JavaScript or restricting direct access.
5. Regular Updates: Keep your website and any form-related plugins up-to-date to patch security vulnerabilities.
6. Server-Side Filtering: Employ server-side techniques to detect and filter out spam based on content patterns.
7. Use Anti-Spam Plugins: If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, plugins can help filter spam.
8. Monitor and Adjust: Regularly monitor the type of spam you receive and adjust your anti-spam measures accordingly.

By understanding how spam emails are generated and implementing these preventative measures, you can significantly reduce the amount of spam from your contact form.