Hello all,
I will share the recommendations which differ slightly depending on which donation format you both are using.
Set a higher minimum donation amount
Sometimes, simply increasing the minimum donation amount is a huge method of preventing these types of attacks. Bots tend to test forms with $1 or up to $5 amounts. If your form only accepts donations of $10 or higher you can prevent these low-hanging easy bots.
Implement Cloudflare Turnstile
If you are using the latest donation format in the visual form builder, we’ve built a free anti-spam feature specifically for them with the Cloudflare Turnstile plugin: https://wordpress.org/plugins/give-cloudflare-turnstile/
You can see how to set things up for it here:
https://www.liquidweb.com/help-docs/software/give/cloudflare-turnstile/
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Add our reCAPTCHA code snippet
If you are still using the legacy or option-based donation forms, we have a code snippet that will add a v2 reCAPTCHA to the bottom of every donation form automatically. Read the instructions within the code snippet comments to make sure your reCAPTCHA keys are entered correctly.
https://github.com/impress-org/givewp-snippet-library/blob/master/form-customizations/implement-recaptcha.php
We recommend adding PHP code snippets to your website via a code snippet plugin. We use this one https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-snippets/, however, there are many available that can work.
Please note that this code snippet is provided as an example of how you can extend GiveWP with code. It’s up to you to implement and customize to your liking. We cannot provide support for custom code on your website, only the code that we create and distribute.
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Most of the time one or more of these options are successful. If however, you are still experiencing donor spam, there are a plugins (some paid) like: https://wordpress.org/plugins/zero-spam/.
They offer excellent support and are pros at managing the ins and outs of stopping spam.
I hope this helps to guide you in the right direction!
Have a great rest of your day 🙂
