Prevent Bot on Forms & Surveys

Blocksurvey blog author
Written by Alvin George
Mar 8, 2024 · 5 mins read

As the digital landscape expands, bots are becoming increasingly prevalent. These bots can be used for malicious activities, such as data scraping and spamming. To better protect our users, we have implemented a Bot Prevention feature that will protect the users from malicious bots or automated activities. Furthermore, it can help to improve the overall quality and accuracy of the survey data, reduce invalid or duplicate responses, protect user data, and prevent survey abuse.

What is Bot Prevention?

Bot prevention refers to the methods and techniques used to identify and prevent automated software, known as bots, from accessing or interacting with a website or application. It monitors the way a user interacts with a website or application, such as the amount of time taken to complete a task, mouse movements and the way in which they navigate through the pages, and uses that information to identify and block bots.

Bot Prevention is designed to provide users with increased security and protection against malicious bots. It works by preventing bots from accessing and manipulating user accounts. This means that users are better protected against malicious attacks, and their accounts remain secure. Bot Prevention is devised to give you greater control over the user experience on your survey. It’s essential to protect your users from malicious bots that can steal data, create spam, or worse.

Prevent Bot Submissions in Forms & Surveys

BlockSurvey’s Bot Prevention feature is powered by Cloudflare’s Turnstile. Turnstile is a smarter, invisible CAPTCHA alternative. Basically, it works by providing the browser with challenges that scan behind the scenes for signals that indicate a human is using the browser. Instead of requiring users to solve a puzzle or enter a series of characters, Invisible CAPTCHA uses advanced machine learning algorithms to analyze the behaviour of users and determine whether they are human or bots. This allows for a seamless user experience, as users are not required to complete any additional steps to prove their humanity.

With our Bot Prevention feature, you can now detect and block bots from your website, giving you increased security and peace of mind. The Bot Prevention feature is powered by sophisticated algorithms that can detect and block bots without affecting the user experience. It will help you protect your data and avoid issues associated with malicious bots.

Uses of Bot Prevention In Forms & Surveys

  • Preventing bots and automated programs from submitting responses
  • It ensures that the responses are coming from real human participants and not bots or other automated programs.
  • Verifying that the person taking the form & survey is paying attention and not just randomly clicking through the questions.
  • By preventing bots from submitting responses, it can help to reduce the number of invalid or duplicate responses.
  • By making sure that the survey responses are coming from real human participants it can help to improve the quality and accuracy of the survey data.
  • Helps protect user data and prevent data breaches by verifying the users are human.

What are the advantages of Bot Prevention?

  • Improved data quality: By preventing bots from submitting responses, bot prevention techniques can help to improve the overall quality and accuracy of the survey data.
  • Reduced invalid or duplicate responses: Bot prevention techniques can also help to reduce the number of invalid or duplicate responses in the survey, which can improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the survey process.
  • Protection of user data: Bot prevention techniques can also help to protect user data by ensuring that only real human participants can submit responses.
  • Protection from automated attacks: Bot prevention techniques can help to protect websites and other online platforms from automated attacks and scraping, which can cause performance issues and compromise user data.
  • Reduced survey abuse: Bot prevention techniques can also help to prevent survey abuse, such as people trying to complete the survey multiple times or using automated scripts to complete the survey more quickly.
  • Better representation of population: By preventing bots and automated programs from submitting responses, bot prevention techniques can help to ensure that the survey results are a better representation of the population being surveyed.

Best practices for using Bot Prevention

  1. Monitor the results: Monitor the results of the survey to check for any suspicious or abnormal patterns in the data, such as a large number of identical responses.
  2. Test the tool: Test the invisible bot prevention tool to make sure it is working as intended and that it is not blocking legitimate human users.
  3. Make sure the tool is accessible: Make sure to use accessible bot prevention measures that can be completed by users with disabilities.
  4. Collect feedback: Collect feedback from participants about the survey and use it to improve the survey for future distributions.

How to Set Bot Prevention in BlockSurvey?

Note: Recently, we made a change to enable bot prevention by default for all BlockSurvey creation. You don't have to set it up going forward. 

1. Once the BlockSurvey has been created, navigate to the "Settings”.

2. You can find the “Prevent Bot Detection” under the General section. Enable bot prevention to protect your forms & surveys from malicious bots or automated activities.

In conclusion, bot prevention is an important aspect of online forms & surveys as it helps to ensure that the responses are coming from real human participants and not bots or other automated programs. It is a great way to further enhance your security and protect your data. We understand that data security is of the utmost importance for our users. That’s why we’re committed to providing the best security possible, and our Bot Prevention feature is an important step in that process. We’re confident that our users will be able to take advantage of this feature, and rest assured that their data is safe.

Prevent Bot on Forms & Surveys FAQ

Why is bot prevention necessary in forms and surveys?

Bot prevention is necessary to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the data collected through forms and surveys. Bots can skew results, submit spam or fraudulent entries, and compromise the security of your systems.

What are some common methods of bot prevention?

Common methods include CAPTCHA tests, honeypot fields, time tracking, IP analysis, and user behavior analysis. These techniques help distinguish between human users and bots.

What is a honeypot field in forms & surveys?

A honeypot field is a hidden field in a form that humans can't see but bots can. If the field is filled out, the form submission is identified as spam, because a human wouldn't have been able to fill it out.

How does time tracking help in bot prevention?

Bots tend to fill out forms faster than humans. By tracking how quickly a form is filled out, suspiciously fast submissions can be identified and blocked.

Are these bot prevention methods foolproof?

While these methods are effective, no method is 100% foolproof. Bot technology is always evolving, so it's important to regularly update and adjust your bot prevention strategies.

Can implementing bot prevention methods affect user experience?

Yes, some bot prevention methods, like CAPTCHA tests, can add an extra step for users. It's important to balance security with user experience, ensuring your forms are easy to fill out while keeping bots out. BlockSurvey uses invisible CAPTCHA using Cloudflare's Turnstile to keep user experience intact and not affected.

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blog author description

Alvin George

Alvin George joined as a Data Analytics Engineer at BlockSurvey and is responsible for gathering the needs of the users to implement it in BlockSurvey. He loves to spend his time playing basketball and singing.

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