Uncategorized – Acceler8 Media Web Design

Spam & Contact Forms – Things to Remember

Uncategorizedacceler8 media, Captcha, Contact Forms, SpamAcceler8 Media

Feb 2019

Spam is a huge issue with contact forms on WordPress websites – both the websites we design, and on a global scale. As the most popular platform for websites, the WordPress contact form is highly targeted by spammers. Spam contact form submissions can be a huge issue for WordPress websites with high traffic, receiving hundreds of spam emails each day. These are inconvenient and make it difficult to spot the genuine messages amongst the spam.

At the end of 2018, the standard anti spam functionality provided by Google’s Captcha facility became obselete. At this point websites worldwide got inundated with hundreds of unwanted spam messages. Once the team at Acceler8 Media became aware of the issue, we systematically went through every website and added a new spam protection mechanism. This has worked perfectly and you should no longer be receiving unwanted emails on a daily basis. However, the spam issue did impact certain email addresses and they started to mark all messages received from customers websites as spam. Given the importance of website contact forms and the potential new enquiries, it is always good practice to check your spam folder on a regular basis. If you find a legitimate contact form in there, mark it as not spam and eventually your email host will start to add the contact forms to your normal inbox.

The Truth About Web directories and SEO

Uncategorizedacceler8 media, SEO, Web DirectoriesAcceler8 Media

Feb 2019

The Truth About Web directories and SEO

For many years a popular strategy amongst website owners was to simply submit their sites to as many web directories as possible. This was a quick and easy way of getting links.

The intention here was to improve search engine visibility and potentially boost rankings.

This method was popular for many reasons, with the main ones being –

It was low cost
It worked
It was easy to do
It didn’t involve a great deal of work

After some time, Google decided enough was enough and started devaluing links from directories, removing directories from their index, and in some cases where the submissions were so poor, sending site owners unnatural link warnings and applying penalties.

As a rule of thumb, you should avoid using software or paid services to submit your site to directories. Although, this might seem like an easy way out, it’s rarely worth it. From what we have seen, a lot of organisations offering directory submissions like this, will end up submitting your site to all sorts of junk sites that are not in slightest bit relevant to your business or location. You need to ensure that your contact details are correct, and that you’re easily able to login later if you need to, to update them. Don’t try to cut corners using services or automated software. Do it right.