My Website’s Contact Form isn’t Working! What is Happening?

We get this sometimes from clients who have convenient email setups that consolidate messages to one inbox with autocomplete passwords...

But how do you know your website’s contact form isn’t working? Is it because you didn’t get an expected email delivered straight to your inbox?

When the contact form can be proven to work (meaning it does in fact send a message) here are the other likely reasons that can cause this message not to get to your inbox.

  1. DNS changes - can break all sorts of things.
  2. Mail server sends to junk or spam - very common.
  3. Mail server outright rejects detecting the email as spam - what mostly happens when this occurs.
  4. Using a mail client - if using MacMail or Outlook you have to properly have connection with the mail server. This setup will break if passwords are changed. If your mail client isn't working right, going to the person who set it up is typically best.

The above all produce the effect of the message you expect not showing up in your inbox.

How can we check?

DNS Changes

This one can be checked fairly easily by those with access to the domain name. Also, if known DNS changes recently happened and mail is disrupted, that is a big red flag to check this area. This however will break ALL email, not just from your contact form. So if you are still getting and sending email of any kind through the address in question, you can usually rule this out.

Mail server sending to junk or spam

Simply check your junk or spam folders for the messages. We are not suggesting a fix yet here, just troubleshooting steps to identify further the issue.

Mail server outright rejects detecting the email as spam (the big one!)

Use another email address or other email addresses and see if those addresses received the message (including checking their junk or spam). If other addresses get the message then the website is sending email - period, it doesn't pick and choose which address to send to.

If you are not getting them, that is another issue. If the other addresses receive the message then you know your contact form is working! Luckily contact forms don’t decide which addresses they obey and send to. They go down the list. Put the email you need to get messages at first in the list. Then add alternate emails after that. If those alternate inboxes get the messages and your first one in the list doesn’t you can safely bet it likely being seen as spam.

Keep in mind however, the other emails you give to test this could be mail servers that ALSO reject the message outright afraid it is spam.

Using mail clients

The best way to rule this out is to bypass the mail client and login directly to the mail server. Examples would be:

  1. yourdomain.com/webmail
  2. yoursomain.com:2095
  3. mail.google.com

Meaning do not go to your Outlook, MacMail or any other mail client. While some people feel this is their email, this is simply a program that copies the messages from a mail server. You have to have to mail server to get mail - you don't have to have a mail client. If you don't know where this is or how to do so ask the one who setup your mail client for you.

By logging directly into your mail server you are bypassing your mail client. If you see messages you are not getting then you know your mail client isn't connecting properly, but your email is okay otherwise. Password or other credential changes are the most common reason for this issue. The point here is this is an issue with your mail client, not your mail server, or your website's contact form.

Why are my contact notification emails being seen as spam?

Because without SMTP or routing the messages through a proper mail server this notice is sent with what's called a "PHP Mail Script". In the case of a message being sent from your website, that is a message that no human logs into their mail server to create and send. It is system generated and a block of code makes the magic happen. That code, being executed from a webpage (versus a mail server) is what other mail servers like Google, Yahoo, Outlook etc.. see as spammy, since that is where most real spam comes from, code on a webpage versus a mail server.

That explains the why, now your next question probably is:

Why did this just start happening?

Only the mail providers really know, but the bottom line is it happens due to their fight against spam. As companies like Google get more strict and change things behinds the scenes, messages that were coming through may one day be deemed as bad all of the sudden. Because your mail server is doing this, there is no button on your website to fix it.

How to get message in my inbox then?

There are two main ways:

  1. Have your mail server whitelist your website’s IP address. This will need to be done with the one who provided your mail setup.
  2. Implement and configure SMTP method (this would equal the closest thing to a 'button' but involves several steps). For example, with WordPress and Gsuite this article shows you what we must do to set this up.  https://wpmailsmtp.com/docs/how-to-set-up-the-gmail-mailer-in-wp-mail-smtp/

Those are your main options if your webform notices are not coming through to the inbox you want, and we know that it is because the message is seen as spam.

My contact form messages are critical, are there any other safeguards?

Every website we build (unless requested otherwise) will store the communications in the database of the website. This is a great fallback to not loose messages for any reason messages are failing. If your current website doesn't have this feature we highly recommend it. That way critical communication can be received while the other kinks get worked out.

Any other reason this can happen?

Yes, if in fact there is an issue with the contact form NOT sending emails and this started around a recent update of that plugin, the update may have broken something. This is typically accompanied by an error of some kind, but can happen in rare cases. It is easy to test, rule out, or roll back (if using maintenance service).

Conclusion

We fully appreciate and understand the disruption not getting email can cause. Hopefully this information will serve as guidance to resolution. Unless hired to manage your mail server we can only provide support for the tools and services we have control over, which typically equal your website and webforms on that site. Mail servers, mail clients, account credentials and the like will need to be addressed by those who set them up.

As always we'll help were we can. Just reach out with any further questions you may have.