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form bots

Form Bots: A Clear and Present Danger for Marketers

  • July 28, 2025
form bots

What are form bots?

Form bots are automated programs designed to fill out and submit web forms. They are very effective because they mimic human behavior, filling out the necessary fields with random prepared false data and submitting them. This makes form bot entries difficult to distinguish from actual user submissions.

People use form bots for various reasons. They could be deployed to contact forms, sign-up pages, or lead-generation forms, creating false entries that compromise the quality of your data. Form bots could also be used to access gated content that’s only available to users who filled out a form.

Read more: What are click bots?

How form bots work?

Form bots operate systematically to mimic human behavior and bypass detection. Here’s how they typically work:

  1. Scanning for forms: Bots scan websites to locate form fields, identifying key HTML tags like and input fields. They also use predefined patterns to recognize common fields such as name, email, and phone number.
  2. Analyzing form requirements: Once a form is found, bots analyze its structure to determine mandatory fields and validation rules. Advanced bots can bypass JavaScript protections and basic CAPTCHAs, completing checkboxes and validation steps automatically.
  3. Filling forms with fake data: Bots populate forms with randomized or pre-programmed data, often using stolen information to appear legitimate. Some even generate realistic names, emails, and phone numbers to pass initial filters.
  4. Submitting forms: Bots rapidly submit forms, sometimes coordinating through botnets to use multiple IP addresses, making detection more difficult. These bulk submissions overwhelm systems with fake entries that are hard to distinguish from real user submissions.

By automating these steps, form bots effectively disrupt data integrity, drain resources, and make filtering genuine submissions a challenge.

The real danger of form bots

Form bots pose a significant threat to businesses by generating fake leads, disrupting analytics, and wasting valuable resources. For companies that rely on lead generation, form bots not only clutter CRMs with false entries but also consume time and energy that could be better spent pursuing genuine prospects.

This issue is similar to challenges seen in click fraud and affiliate fraud, where fraudulent activity drains budgets and skews performance metrics.

Beyond resource waste, form bots distort key analytics like conversion rates and ROI, making it difficult to measure campaign success or optimize strategies effectively. Their impact also extends to website performance because high volumes of bot traffic can strain servers, slow down pages, and drive away real visitors—resulting in missed opportunities to capture legitimate leads.

In more severe cases, excessive bot activity can trigger account flags or suspensions on CRMs, email systems, or ad platforms. Competitors could even exploit form bots to sabotage your operations, giving them an unfair advantage in capturing and converting real leads.

Read more: Stop competitors from clicking your ads

Different types of form bots

Here are the most common types of form bots:

  • Google form bots: Target Google Forms to create fake entries, distort survey results, and compromise data accuracy.
  • Spam bots: Flood forms with irrelevant or malicious data, disrupting workflows and overwhelming systems.
  • Lead generation bots: Mimic real users to produce fake leads
  • Data scraping bots: Extract personal details from forms, posing privacy risks and violating data policies.
  • Testing bots: Overload systems to probe vulnerabilities

Read more: Facebook Spam Bots

7 powerful ways to stop form bots

There are many ways to combat, and even stop, form bots from submitting fake leads on your website, but the best approach will be to set up a multi-layered system using some of the following strategies.

1. Use email validation tools

Email validation tools can also help fight form bots by identifying and removing fake or invalid email entries, ensuring only genuine, active addresses make it through. This reduces clutter in your database, improves email deliverability, and prevents wasted resources on fake leads or spam contacts.

Here are some top tools to consider.

  • ZeroBounce: A popular with businesses of all sizes, ZeroBounce promises “military-grade security and an email deliverability toolkit”.
  • NeverBounce: Known for its “Clean” feature, which quickly identifies and removes dubious emails, NeverBounce is highly user-friendly.
  • Clearout: Ensures 98%+ accuracy with 20+ validation checks and includes a Google Sheets add-on.
  • GetProspect: GetProspect offers high accuracy with a 12-step verification process and integrates with CRMs like HubSpot.
  • Hunter: Hunter is a comprehensive email verification and finder tool, ideal for sales and marketing teams. It checks emails against a professional database.

There are many ways to combat, and even stop, form bots from submitting fake leads on your website, but the best approach will be to set up a multi-layered system using some of the following strategies.

2. Implement CAPTCHA

stop form bots with captcha and recaptcha

There are free solutions like Google reCAPTCHA that helps identify bots by analyzing visitor behavior and using adaptive CAPTCHA challenges when necessary. One thing to remember is that advanced bots can beat ReCAPTCHA, and some online services even offer captcha-solving services for as low as $1 for 1000 Captchas solved. So, you shouldn’t use it as a standalone defense for your website.

4. Add a honeypot

Honeypots use hidden fields that legitimate users won’t see, but bots will. If these hidden fields are filled out, the system identifies the entry as a bot submission and can block it accordingly.

5. Use rate limiting

Rate limiting restricts the number of form submissions from a single IP address within a given timeframe, curbing excessive form fills from bots.

For example, a rule might allow no more than 10 form submissions per hour from one IP. If a bot exceeds this rate, additional submissions are blocked. The downside is that this strategy may block real users, especially on a shared network. Additionally, sophisticated bot networks that use IP rotation may bypass this easily.

6. Require double opt-ins

Double opt-ins improve lead quality by requiring users to confirm their email via a link before completing their submission. While effective at filtering fake entries, the extra step can be inconvenient and is best suited for critical forms where data accuracy is essential.

7. Consider moving away from WordPress

WordPress, hosting, 63.3% of websites globally in 2024 is a major target for bots due to its widespread use and standardized form structures. These make it easier for attackers to exploit one vulnerability across numerous sites.

Switching to a less common platform can improve security by making your site harder for bots to target. Although this may not be practical for larger websites, businesses facing persistent form bot issues should consider it.

8. Use IP and geolocation measures

You can block submissions from regions or IP ranges with high bot activity by analyzing IP addresses and geolocation data. For example, if a form receives numerous submissions from data center IPs or regions that don’t align with your target audience, you can block traffic from these sources.

Fraud Blocker has geo-location customizations that allow you to create custom rules that include or exclude ad traffic from specific countries. This acts as a second layer of protection above your any location targeting.

how to test for spam clicks

Eliminate bot activity with Fraud Blocker

stop form bots with fraud blocker

Bots can do more than just submit fake info on your forms; they can be used to increase your campaign’s invalid click rate and derail your marketing efforts. Fraud Blocker helps you stop these malicious interactions by identifying suspicious traffic patterns and blocking harmful activity. It acts as a powerful second layer of protection, ensuring your ad spend reaches real users, enhancing efficiency, and reducing wasted clicks.

Start a 7-day free trial to see how much bot traffic you can successfully block.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew Iyiola

Matthew is the resident content marketing expert at Fraud Blocker with several years of experience writing about ad fraud. When he’s not producing killer content, you can find him working out or walking his dogs.

Matthew is the resident content marketing expert at Fraud Blocker with several years of experience writing about ad fraud. When he’s not producing killer content, you can find him working out or walking his dogs.

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