crawlers filling out embedded forms

[Trish_Voskovitc]

hi all
the last time we tried to embed a form on our site we got contstant bogus submissions from crawlers so we removed. We didn't embed the standard way with marketo embed code - we built form that was connected to marketo form (don't know exactly how but my webguy wanted to stylize so did his own way and the submissions were caught by marketo).

Anywaywe want to try again but this time using the official marketo embed code for a new form 2.0 form

does the embed code somehow stop crawlers from filling out form and submitting or will we run risk of getting bogus submissions again?

[Anonymous]

There's a discussion on this with some code here: https://community.marketo.com/MarketoDiscussionDetail?id=90650000000Ppy4AAC

When I had issues with crawlers, I had my webmaster code in blocks to different fields. She was able to block things like 1234, None, and bogus characters like that. I don't have the code, but I do know it's possible, esp with forms 2.0 if this your first go-around with them.

[Anonymous]

It's a bit of a matter of degrees. If you were using non-Marketo forms below, you will probably find that our forms have less bogus fillouts- there is some design we've done to prevent that.

However, we don't go crazy in blocking them because we don't want any good leads to get blocked. Also, if there is a standard thing you're seeing in the most common bogus form fillouts, you can always make a Smart Campaign to Delete or otherwise hide them.

[Trish_Voskovitc]

i actually want to block the ability for the crawlers to see the forms versus guess at all the potential bogus fill out data- that would be impossible as crawlers put in random stuff.

the discussion referenced above was also about blocking specific submissions on the fields (blocking specific domains)

But Erik, it sounds like you are saying that if we use the embed code versus mirroring the form or putting in an iframe we should not get crawled as Marketo has someone designed the form code to repel crawlers. is this correct?

[Anonymous]

We block some of those bad submissions. It isn't perfect (because we don't want to lose any lead submission), but it might well be better than what your vanilla forms do.

[Trish_Voskovitc]

Erik,

not sure what you mean by vanilla forms- all our forms are marketo forms

the question is just whether there is a way to use Marketo forms on our site (versus sitting on a landing page on our marketo subdomain) that will attract fewer or no crawlers.

ideally we want to be hidden from crawlers - we only want forms filled out by actual people.

so are you saying the best answer is to use the embed code and hope for the best as your code can't tell if form is being filled out by a crawler or an actual person?  is this better than using your forms in an iframe?

thanks
trish

[Anonymous]

.

[Anonymous]

I misread this.

I thought you were using non-Marketo forms previously. There are some ways to tell if a form is being filled out by bot or not- which we do, but if you're already using out forms you're already benefiting from them.

There probably won't be a noticable difference between iframes and embed codes won't be different.

[Trish_Voskovitc]

Erik,
yes we did try with a mirrored form and got too many crawlers so we removed. now we want to try with marketo form either iframed method or using embed code. sounds like either way will be the same result


thanks,
trish

[Anonymous]

Did anyone find a solution? We are getting several bogus form submits.