How To Block Gravity Forms SPAM from Ever Getting Submitted
By Clifford P
I was going to add “for free” but neither Gravity Forms (GF) nor Gravity Perks (GP) are free… but you’re probably not reading this unless you already own GF.
Or maybe you’ve heard how great Gravity Forms is and this is just what you needed to confidently get started with it. (See our other Gravity Forms tips)
Buying GF or GP via my affiliate links here help me out without costing you more. If you already own GF, GP is a lot of value for the price.
Note: We previously used Comment Blacklist Manager by Andrew Norcross (as shown in the video, below), but this other plugin is much easier to maintain across multiple websites. Both allow adding your own disallowed keywords to the GitHub list.
3) Go to wp-admin > Settings > Discussion
Check the box for “Do you want to use the blacklist of Grant Hutchinson which is maintained on Github”
Paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cliffordp/cliff-universal-comment-blocklist/main/list.txt in the “If you want to use another blacklist, please paste the URL here” field. Doing so will merge the 2 lists together in the “Disallowed Comment Keys” field, and you may still use the “Local Blacklist” field in addition for site-specific blocking.
Note the use of the RAW GitHub link, not the repo viewing link. It should look like this:
Comment Blacklist Updater settings with Cliff’s additional blocklist
4) Go to each Gravity Forms form and apply the Perk
You can apply it to all form fields by going to the Restrictions section of each form’s Settings, like this:
Gravity Forms Blocklist from Gravity Perks – Restrictions form setting
Or, if that Blocklist box is not checked at the Form Settings’ level, you’ll have the option to apply the restriction only to specific fields like a textarea, email, or other field you’ve noticed being abused by spammers:
Gravity Forms Blocklist from Gravity Perks – Restriction per form field
How To Block Gravity Forms SPAM from Ever Getting Submitted
I was going to add “for free” but neither Gravity Forms (GF) nor Gravity Perks (GP) are free… but you’re probably not reading this unless you already own GF.
Or maybe you’ve heard how great Gravity Forms is and this is just what you needed to confidently get started with it. (See our other Gravity Forms tips)
Buying GF or GP via my affiliate links here help me out without costing you more. If you already own GF, GP is a lot of value for the price.
Table of Contents
You’ll Need…
Quick Steps
Last updated October 14, 2022
1) Install and activate the Gravity Forms, Gravity Perks, and Gravity Forms Blocklist plugins mentioned above.
2) Install and activate the Comment Blacklist Updater plugin (not shown in the video)
Note: We previously used Comment Blacklist Manager by Andrew Norcross (as shown in the video, below), but this other plugin is much easier to maintain across multiple websites. Both allow adding your own disallowed keywords to the GitHub list.
3) Go to wp-admin > Settings > Discussion
Note the use of the RAW GitHub link, not the repo viewing link. It should look like this:
4) Go to each Gravity Forms form and apply the Perk
You can apply it to all form fields by going to the Restrictions section of each form’s Settings, like this:
Or, if that Blocklist box is not checked at the Form Settings’ level, you’ll have the option to apply the restriction only to specific fields like a textarea, email, or other field you’ve noticed being abused by spammers:
How-To Video
Note: This video is outdated but may still be helpful.