Contact us = spam messages

CaroleAs:

Hum... that is a good point. However, all the emails i get are showing the same "subjects" like:

Website Inquiry from Creation Cassel
or
Demande de renseignements du site Web Creation Cassel

However, I justl changed the address on that main page, to see which one is sending the emails. I'll report back in a few hours probably.

But if they still do come from the Contact Us page, what could be done? or looked into?
As Design57 pointed out, bots harvest email addresses on web pages! There are ways of hiding it from bots, but its not a good practice to advertises a spam-me address...

You still have the caned input field 'should-be-empty' changing this to a name of your picking and don't tell us, helps. Find the name in template/tpl_contact_us.php and modules/pages/contact_us/header_php.php and change them both to the same name.

You have no subject line in the form! Its a normal way ZC came, but it makes knowing where the email came from allot harder.. I got to go feed horses... I'll can some code and post when I get back....

You are missing a closing DIV tag on your contact page or something is missing in the right side boxes. just did a quick look...

Just to update, I got more spam emails since my last post and they don't come to the email address listed on the main page (which I agree i might remove altogether since visitors CAN use the Contact Us link anyways).

As to change the 'should-be-empty', is there any limitation as to what it can be? can it have spaces or is the format like this necessary (hyphens instead of spaces)?

What are you referring to, about the Div tag missing? I noticed today that the right side boxes appear at the bottom of the contact us page, which i find strange, but i have no clue how to change the size of the boxes on that specific page.

CaroleAs:

Just to update, I got more spam emails since my last post and they don't come to the email address listed on the main page (which I agree i might remove altogether since visitors CAN use the Contact Us link anyways).

As to change the 'should-be-empty', is there any limitation as to what it can be? can it have spaces or is the format like this necessary (hyphens instead of spaces)?

What are you referring to, about the Div tag missing? I noticed today that the right side boxes appear at the bottom of the contact us page, which i find strange, but i have no clue how to change the size of the boxes on that specific page.
The field name can be any word or set of words, but I would use something common in forms. The word needs to be the same in tpl_contact_us and the contact_us header_php file, that's the only requirement.

Use the web developer tools inspector to find the missing closing DIV tag, that's the reason for the side boxes moving under and to the left.

davewest:

The field name can be any word or set of words, but I would use something common in forms. The word needs to be the same in tpl_contact_us and the contact_us header_php file, that's the only requirement.

Thanks. That is clearer.

davewest:

Use the web developer tools inspector to find the missing closing DIV tag, that's the reason for the side boxes moving under and to the left.

I know how to use the inspector, but i would not know how to search for a MISSING tag. Could you explain?

davewest:

The field name can be any word or set of words, but I would use something common in forms. The word needs to be the same in tpl_contact_us and the contact_us header_php file, that's the only requirement.

I am not 100% anymore about this. In both of those files, the syntax is different so I am not sure what needs to be identical. Could you give me a fake example (which I obviously won't copy)?

CaroleAs:

I am not 100% anymore about this. In both of those files, the syntax is different so I am not sure what needs to be identical. Could you give me a fake example (which I obviously won't copy)?

Sorry to keep bouncing in/out, lot going on and very little time.

OK so using the code from the default 155f forms..

Common form fields would be 'email', 'contactname' and so on, using one like 'email-me' or 'questions' or use your dog or horse name... don't use spam, bot or bad-bot... Short names, acronyms, or miss spelled names really work grate (h0st).

using the can form tpl_contact_us.php

<?php echo zen_draw_input_field('email-me', '', ' size="40" id="CUAS" style="visibility:hidden; display:none;" autocomplete="off"'); ?>

Then the header_php.php

$antiSpam = isset($_POST['email-me']) ? zen_db_prepare_input($_POST['email-me']) : '';

Working on a FAQ, may have to post it to my blog, getting a bit long.

Thank you very much. That is definitely clearer. So I changed it to... wait, I can't tell you can I? :)

I'll see if I still get spam and will report in the morning.

CaroleAs:

Thank you very much. That is definitely clearer. So I changed it to... wait, I can't tell you can I? :)

I'll see if I still get spam and will report in the morning.

That looks good to work.. I just posted a FAQ on my blog covering different methods and the next level of honeypots.

Initially, after I had made those changes, I still got spam emails as if nothing was changed. That is when I realized that I had some "test sites" using the same unedited code, so I went ahead and edited those too. Strangely, they had no tpl_contact_us file, but I edited the header_php files.

Since this morning, I still got a handful of spam emails, but maybe 3 or 4 instead of 20-30 like I had before, which is great improvement. I guess I can live with a handful of them, although it would be idea to prevent them all, but I am sure some bots are just getting smarter now and will find a way around.

Thanks.

P.S. I still don't know how to search for a missing div tag.