Akismet & Your WordPress Contact Forms

We often hear from Akismet users on WordPress that, even after activating our plugin, they are being flooded with spam via their contact forms. While Akismet will automatically begin checking all comments submitted on your post and page comment forms, we can’t simply hook into any contact form plugin (or theme) and handle those submissions, as well. The good news is that there are some really great (and free!) contact form plugins out there that include Akismet integration, and we thought that we’d let you know about them in case you’re in the market.

Jetpack by WordPress.com
Although Jetpack brings you a ton of other features that are native to WordPress.com, it includes a simple and powerful contact form module that is automatically integrated with the Akismet service. You’ll also notice that the submission queue has been designed to mirror the native WordPress comment queue as closely as possible to ensure ease of use and moderation. What’s more, Jetpack and Akismet are developed under the same roof by Automattic, which means that you can rest easy knowing that the integration is as tight as possible.

Contact Form 7
Another powerful – and ever so popular – option is Contact Form 7 by Takayuki Miyoshi. It boasts a great amount of flexibility, some really nifty features, is surprisingly easy to configure, and has been downloaded over 12 million times. Setting up the plugin to send data to our service will take some manual configuration, but the steps are fairly simple and are clearly outlined here.

Note that, with all of the plugins mentioned above, you will need to have Akismet installed and activated for the integration to work. And while we are unable to provide technical support for Contact Form 7, we’re always more than happy to help you through any potential problems with Akismet functionality. Give us a shout!