How to Limit Survey Responses, Block Reattempts, and Prevent Spam

To maintain the accuracy and authenticity of your survey data, you can prevent respondents from submitting multiple responses to the same survey. This helps avoid duplicate or contradictory answers from the same person.

ProProfs Survey Maker allows you to restrict repeated attempts in two ways:

• Block by computer – Prevents reattempts from the same device by placing a cookie in the respondent's browser.
• Block by IP – Prevents reattempts from the same IP address, regardless of the device being used.

You can also enable Captcha protection to prevent automated bots and spam submissions.

Watch the following video for a quick introduction to creating surveys in ProProfs Survey Maker:

How to Block Users From Reattempting a Survey

Step 1: Go to a survey's Settings >> Security.

Step 2: Enable the Block setting. Once enabled, you'll see the following options:

• Block by computer: Any reattempt from the same device will be blocked.
• Block by IP: Any reattempt from the same IP address, regardless of the device, will be blocked.

After enabling either option, respondents attempting to retake the survey will see a message indicating that additional responses are not allowed.

Additional Settings

Attempts Allowed Per User

When the Block option is enabled, the Attempts Allowed Per User setting is automatically disabled. This is expected behavior because blocking prevents respondents from taking the survey more than once.

Total Attempts Allowed

This setting limits the total number of responses that can be submitted for a survey, regardless of the number of respondents.

For example, if you set Total Attempts Allowed to 5, the survey will accept only five submissions in total. These five attempts can be used by:

• One respondent submitting five times (if reattempts are allowed), or
• Five different respondents submitting once each.

Once the maximum number of attempts is reached, the survey will no longer accept responses.

Respondents who try to access the survey after the limit has been reached will see the following message:

Step 3:

Save your settings.

How to Prevent Spam Using Captcha

Spam responses can affect the quality and reliability of your survey data. To help ensure that responses are submitted by real people rather than automated bots, you can enable Captcha protection.

Step 1:

Under the Security tab, locate the Captcha setting and enable it.

Step 2:

Save your settings.

When enabled, respondents must complete a Captcha verification before submitting the survey.

3. Enabling the Block option automatically disables the option Attempts Allowed Per User. This is a natural course of action since you're blocking reattempts entirely.

4. Total Attempts Allowed: This indicates the total number of attempts allowed for a single survey, irrespective of the number of users. For example, you've set five attempts for a particular survey, as shown in the screenshot above. Now, those five attempts can be utilized by a single user or five different users (one attempt for each user). Once those five attempts are done, this particular survey will no longer be available for the taking. Once you're done with all these settings, save.

This is the message you'll get on trying to access the survey after using the number of reattempts allowed to you.

Spamming is a major issue that can compromise the authenticity of the data you collect through your surveys. You can avoid this problem by activating the Captcha setting.

How to Activate the Captcha Setting

Step 1: Under the Security tab, locate the Captcha setting at the bottom and enable it. Once done, save.

This is how the Captcha appears in a survey.

That's all about limiting survey responses, blocking repeated attempts, and preventing spam submissions in your surveys.