WP-CONTACTFORM: AKISMET EDITION

Please note: this plugin is not currently compatible with WordPress 2.5, and it’s going to be a while before I’ll have the time to update it. In the meantime, I’m using the excellent and flexible cforms II plugin instead, and encourage you to do the same.


I’ve been using Ryan Duff’s WP-ContactForm 1.4.3 for a while now, because it is good at what it’s supposed to do. However, lately, the spam coming through it has just been overwhelming, and one of my clients is experiencing this frustration as well.Looking at the Trac tickets for WP-ContactForm, it became obvious that we aren’t the only ones having spam issues. There are multiple tickets asking for some kind of solution, but they haven’t been solved yet (and just to be clear, in no way do I fault Ryan for this; it’s a ton of work to write and maintain a good plugin, and sometimes a developer just can’t keep up with everyone’s desires!).

In my various searching, I did find the very promising “WordPress Contact Form with Spam Protection” by Douglas Karr; however, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted: a behind-the-scenes solution that doesn’t take any extra effort at all by legitimate visitors. Certainly, the simple question in Douglas’s system is not taxing, but I’d just rather have something completely “out of the way.”

Different folks have different preferences, but I really like the way Akismet deals with spam, and the Akismet plugin comes with WordPress out-of-the-box, so I decided to use their service.

What it does:
The basic purpose of this plugin is to make it easy to have a “Contact Me” form on your WordPress blog. By following the directions below, you’ll be able to easily add the form. Additionally, if you have Akismet installed, all messages will be checked for “spaminess” before being sent to you, effectively keeping the spammers out of your face.

How to use it:

  1. Upload all files to wp-content/plugins/wp-contactform-akismet/
  2. Activate the plugin on the plugin screen
  3. Go to Options -> Contact Form and update the fields with your information
  4. Create a post or a page and copy and paste <!--contact form--> where you want it to appear.

You’ll need to have Akismet installed for the spam-filtering to work. Otherwise, all messages will be sent straight to you, unchecked (that’s a good thing because it means that even if you don’t have Akismet for some reason, you’ll still get your messages).

How to get it:
Download WP-ContactForm: Akismet Edition (Version 1.1, released April 22, 2007)

Please note:
Consider this an alpha release. I can’t promise much in the way of support (time constraints being what they are) but please feel free to report any issues you encounter.

Known issues:

  • The current version doesn’t work with WordPress 2.5.
  • You can’t use the quicktag option in WordPress 2.1. This is a known WordPress bug. In the meantime, just use the <!--contact form--> code.
  • There’s no way to absolutely rule out false positives. Unlike the WordPress comments, there’s no record of what’s been caught. If this starts to be a problem, I may write additional functionality into the plugin.

Change log:

1.1, released April 22, 2007: Moved the CSS out of the PHP for easier editing and better search engine friendliness.

1.0-DD32, released February 9, 2007: fixed a path issue that prevented the admin options from displaying.

1.0: initial release