Utilizing Akismet Spam Blocker in a PHP Contact Form
I have a contact form on my company’s website that I have had serious problems with in the past… The past being before I implemented Akismet into the code.
Akismet is a service provided by Automattic (the creators of Wordpress) and is an excellent API based spam blocking system. I’ve been using it for quite a while on my blog and rogue spams hardly EVER make it into my comments. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of only 1-2 out of thousands make it through.
I will post both the basic code for a contact form as well as the Akismet PHP5 Class (from Alex) and the include file I created to utilize the PHP5 Class.
Here is the basic form (named contact.php), with the PHP code on top, that I use.
<?php
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == “POST”)
{
include ‘akismet.php’;
$to = “YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS“;
$subject = $_REQUEST["Subject"];
$message = $_REQUEST["Message"].”<BR><BR>”.$_REQUEST["Phone"].”<BR>”.$_REQUEST["URL"];
$from = $_REQUEST["Email"];
$headers = ‘From:’.$from.”\r\n” .
‘X-Mailer: PHP/’ . phpversion() .”\r\n”.
‘Content-type: text/html’.”\r\n”.
‘Date: ‘.date(”r”).”\r\n”;
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
echo “Message Sent!”;
die();
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>My Contact Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action=”contact.php” method=”POST”>
<table align=”left”>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Your name:</td>
<td><input name=”Name” type=”text”></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Website:</td>
<td><input name=”URL” type=”text”></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Your email:</td>
<td><input name=”Email” type=”text”></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Subject:</td>
<td><input name=”Subject” type=”text”></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Message:</td>
<td><textarea name=”Message” style=”width: 224px; height: 83px”></textarea></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”right”>Your phone:</td>
<td><input name=”Phone” type=”text”>(Optional)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td><input name=”Submit” type=”submit” value=”submit”></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
</body>
</html>
contact.php includes the code I created to use the Akismet PHP5 Class mentioned earlier.
Here is the code for the akismet.php. Be sure to change the $WebsiteURL variable to your website address and $APIKey variable to the API key you already have. If you do not have one, signup for a Wordpress.com account and you can get one free.
<?php
//Akisment PHP5 Class from Alex (http://www.achingbrain.net/stuff/php/akismet)
include ‘Akismet.class.php’;
//ENTER YOUR API KEY ON THE LINE BELOW!
$APIKey = ‘YOUR_API_KEY‘;
//Enter your web site address below. This is used as a parameter in the API call to Akismet…
$WebsiteURL = ‘YOUR_WEBSITE_ADDRESS‘;
//Call to check for valid API Key…
$akismet = new Akismet($WebsiteURL, $APIKey);
//Check to see if your API key is valid, if not, it will tell you so and stop.
if($akismet->isKeyValid()) {}else{echo “Your API key is NOT valid!”;die();}
if ($_SERVER["REQUEST_METHOD"] == “POST”) {
//CHANGE the $_REQUEST items to match your form field input element names
$akismet = new Akismet($WebsiteURL, $APIKey); //
$akismet->setCommentAuthor($_REQUEST["Name"]);
$akismet->setCommentAuthorEmail($_REQUEST["Email"]);
$akismet->setCommentAuthorURL($_REQUEST["URL"]);
$akismet->setCommentContent($_REQUEST["Message"]);
$akismet->setPermalink($_SERVER["HTTP_REFERER"]);
//IF THE MESSAGE IS FOUND TO BE SPAM, A MESSAGE WILL BE DISPLAYED. Customize as needed.
if($akismet->isCommentSpam()) {
echo “For some reason, your message was flagged as a possible SPAM message.”;
die();
}
//IF THE MESSAGE MAKES IT TO THIS POINT, IT IS VALID AND THE SCRIPT THAT CALLED THIS
//FILE WILL CONTINUE PROCESSING THE INPUT ACCORDINGLY…
}
?>
Click here to download a ZIP of the three files used in this example.
If you have any questions, leave a comment here and I’ll do my best to answer in a timely manner…