Tools Used

Review

A while ago I noticed a big uptick in spam submissions on my Gravity Forms. There were comments on the Gravity Forms social media channels lamenting the same. The primary recommendation to reduce Gravity Forms spam was offered on the Gravity Forms blog. I tried several of the suggestions with no measurable improvement.

After some searching I found another option and decided to give it a try.

Prior to installation, I was receiving 10-20 spam submissions per week on my public contact form (and close to zero legitimate submissions).

Gravity Perks GF Blacklist

This plugin is available as part of the Gravity Perks catalog of plugins.

It works by validating the field values from your choice of fields against a list of blacklisted words. You can manually create your list of blacklisted words (or IP addresses) using the WordPress Comment Blocklist feature. I opted for the automated blacklist management option and also installed Blacklist Updater (a free plugin). The automated option pulls in a blacklist that is maintained in GitHub.

The plugin prevents submission of a form if the blacklisted words appear in the fields you’ve selected. A snippet is offered that allows submissions to appear successful while silently rejecting them. Bottom line: the spam tab on your form entries will remain empty.

Immediately after I set this up I saw a reduction of spam submissions to 4-5 per week. This was a significant improvement and I was happy with it for a while.

But after a while I started to get frustrated again. Most of the submission I was still receiving were not even in English. It seemed like there should be a simple solution to block comments submitted in a language that I cannot read.

I was on the verge of breaking down and paying for Akismet* when I came across another option.

*Akismet is free for personal blogs, but requires a paid subscription for business sites.

Gravity Forms Zero Spam

This plugin is available for free in the WordPress plugin directory. It was recently acquired by GravityView.

It is an “activate and go” plugin – no settings to configure. Once installed, it accepts all submissions, but sends to spam any that it deems to be spam.

Immediately after this was installed, my spam submissions were 100% eliminated! I logged into my site to make sure that it was accurately identifying spam. Everything identified as spam was legitimately spam.

That was two months ago and the plugin is still accurately identifying 100% of my Gravity Forms spam submissions.

Conclusion

Both plugins do their job of blocking Gravity Forms spam, so the best fit for you will depend on your tools and goals.

If you already own a Gravity Perks license and you’ve identified some specific words or IP addresses that you would like to block, then Gravity Perks’ GF Blacklist is a good option.

If you are looking for a plug-and-play solution, then GravityView’s Gravity Forms Zero Spam is your best option.