I'm trying to think of better ways to fight spam than having a captcha that a user needs to fill in.
I've considered emailing a confirmation link to the user that they need to click in order to send the message they filled out in the form, but with Google Analytics' "not provided", I'm wary of doing this.
Does anyone have any other ideas that are more user friendly than a captcha?
your email confirmation sounds like a good way, but i don't really get the google analytics thing. i do know some bots take them into account thouh, here's a few (possible) methods.
during registration, ask the user a random simple question, and in your submit check if the answer is right. if it isn't, stop the registration. example questions would be 'what language is this language written in?' or 'what's the name of this website?'
check the time it took for a user to fill in a form (by using PHP, JScript can be fooled). if it's too short, it is likely a bot.
if your site has very few visitors, requiring an admin to look at each registration might also be an idea. very boring work tbh.
that's all i can think of tbh, captcha may not be user friendly, but atleast it isn't bot-friendly either.
Hi phoenix_2000
Google's Privacy Policy prevents Analytics from recording keyword usage while a user is logged into their gmail account (I think this may extend to other Google services but I'm not 100% certain). I know the percentage of users is minimal (currently seeing 9.97% "not provided") but if I want to implement the confirmation link technique, this may go up.
The time checking sounds like a good idea though. I think I'll look into that.
you made an account just to make that comment? no offense, but that's not exactly a flying start
Using the idea of a Honey Pot has always been a pretty effective way to prevent comment form spam. Basically add one or more additional form fields that are hidden to the browsing user that should always be blank. When a form is submitted with those fields filled in, reject the submission.
sounds like a good idea. i'll use it myself to see how effective it is.
on a related side-note, should anyone wonder what my previous comment was about: there used to be a bit of spam above me, but it got removed
Just got back to reading this. The honey pot idea is brilliant! Very much an 'out-of-the-box' idea (excuse the pun) :P
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