Are there any best practices or guidelines for setting an appropriate time threshold for form submission in PHP to balance user experience and spam prevention?

To balance user experience and spam prevention when setting a time threshold for form submission in PHP, it is recommended to use a reasonable time limit that allows genuine users to submit the form without inconvenience, while also preventing spam bots from submitting forms too quickly. One common approach is to set a time threshold of a few seconds (e.g., 5 seconds) between form submissions. 

session_start();

$submission_time_threshold = 5; // Set the time threshold in seconds

if(isset($_SESSION['last_submission_time']) && time() - $_SESSION['last_submission_time'] < $submission_time_threshold){
    // Form submission is too fast, likely a spam bot
    // Handle accordingly, e.g., display an error message or block the submission
} else {
    // Process the form submission
    // Add your form processing logic here
    
    // Update the last submission time in the session
    $_SESSION['last_submission_time'] = time();
}

Keywords

form submission time threshold user experience spam prevention guidelines

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