Robot And Spider Protection For Forms
Robots and spiders do target your forms.
Some are nefarious, focused on spamming or private information gathering. Others crawl form action URLs and trigger scripts.
Forms can be made invisible or otherwise protected from spammers. I'll list a few resources in a moment.
But first, let me say it might not work.
If the form being protected has been found already by rogue spiders, form field details and location of both form and script are already in spammers' databases.
In that case, both the form and the form processing script must be moved before protection can be most effective.
The form has to be moved so the spammers' robots no longer know where it is. The script has to be moved because spammers can trigger scripts even without the forms.
Moving a form generally means moving it to a different web page. A Redirect 301 directive can be made so links don't break.
To move a form handling script, generally it is enough to rename the script file. The action= URL of forms using the script will need to be changed accordingly.
Do the moving at the time robot/spider protection is being implemented. Doing it early entails some risk of spammers' robots finding them again before the new locations can be protected.
Robot/Spider Form Protection Resources
- How They Spam Your Forms
- Differences Between Automated Submission and Form Hijacking
- Master Form V4 Hijack-proof form handling software with auto-submission protection.
- Ajax Form Protection Probably the best form protection of all. (a WebSite's Secret exclusive)
- One Way to Block Form Submission Robots
- PHP Form Spam Prevention
- Relatively Simple Form Spam Prevention
Will Bontrager
