ViralSweep's spam filter is enabled by default on any promotion you create. The recommended setting is high, which will automatically limit your promotion to one entry per IP address. Typically, your official rules will only allow one entry per household, which limits the ability for multiple people from the same household to enter a promotion. The Spam Filter does not have any effect on earning bonus entries through our system.

This system is put into place to prevent attacks from cheaters, spammers, and bots. We use this system to protect our users so that their promotions are not flooded with thousands of fake entries.

While we give you the ability to change the spam filter settings, there are more systems that we use behind the scenes to detect bots and spammers. These filters cannot be turned off.

Please note: By default, any entries that are flagged by our spam filter are moved to the Invalid section under the Entrants tab on your promotion. We store entries that are flagged as invalid for 180 days and we automatically purge them after this time period, unless you've manually validated them first.

You can change the settings by going to:

Edit > Advanced > Spam Filter

You can choose from the following options:

We only suggest disabling the spam filter in situations where multiple people will be entering from the same IP address or device. Typically this will occur for promotions that are run internally at companies, or at events where everyone is connected to the same internet connection but on different devices.

We suggest using the events setting when you are in an environment where you want to use one device to collect every single entry that comes through your form AND when you want to be able to quickly reset the form so the next person can enter. Some examples of this include:

Please Note: The events setting will disable cookies on the form, which means that right after someone enters you can refresh the page to get back to the entry form so someone else can enter. This means that if you set up social actions, they cannot properly be tracked as our system does not accept cookies using the Events setting. If you want people to be able to earn bonus entries and or they are entering from their own devices, use the Off spam filter setting.

If the spam filter is triggered by someone on your promotion, the system will log the data under the entrants tab in your dashboard within the Invalid section. This means that your data export and your analytics will only contain legitimate entries, and you will not have to sift through thousands of fake entries from cheaters or bots.

Yes! You wouldn't believe how many fake entries are submitted into promotions on a daily basis. There are even communities on the web that are dedicated to spamming promotions with thousands of fake entries in hopes that they can win by cheating. We do our best to prevent this from happening, so your promotions are only collecting legitimate entries.

If you have any further questions, please start a Chat. Just "Click" on the chat icon in the lower right corner to talk with our support team.