How to Stop Fake Email Signups in WordPress (2025 Update)

Case Study: 100K Fake Emails Blocked by CleanTalk

If you run a WordPress or WooCommerce site, WordPress fake signup protection isn’t just about convenience — fake email signups waste resources, distort analytics, and can even harm your domain reputation. According to CleanTalk’s historical stats, up to 30 % of registration spam comes from non-existent email addresses.

That means thousands of “users” who will never confirm their accounts, never receive notifications, and often trigger bounce-backs that make email servers suspicious of your site.

WordPress Fake Signup Protection — Real-Time Email Validation

CleanTalk’s Email Checker verifies email existence in real time — the moment a user types or submits a form. The updated feature Non-Existent Email Notification instantly alerts users if their email is invalid, reducing failed signups and improving UX.

If the address doesn’t exist or belongs to a disposable domain, CleanTalk blocks the signup before saving it to your database — no fake profiles, no clutter.

How It Works in WordPress & WooCommerce

Once you install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin , verification runs automatically during:

  • User registration (WordPress + WooCommerce forms)
  • Contact form submissions 
  • Comments and product reviews

CleanTalk routes each submitted email to its cloud service, checks validity, and returns a pass or block decision in milliseconds.
In your Dashboard, blocked signups appear with status “Fake email”, letting you track spam attempts and patterns.

Real Case: 100K Fake Emails Blocked

Over time, CleanTalk has filtered massive volumes of fake email signups across WordPress websites — around 100,000 per month for large site networks.

Common examples include:

  • no*****@*********in.biz
  • te**@**********il.ru 
  • qw*******@**il.fake

Each could have filled your database with junk or hurt your deliverability.

WordPress Fake Signup ProtectionExample image: entries marked “Fake email” and “Post denied” in the Anti-Spam Dashboard.

For WooCommerce Store Owners

Fake accounts are even more damaging in e-Commerce. They:

  • Distort conversion and sales analytics 

  • Trigger failed transactions and undelivered order emails 

  • Lower sender reputation and email deliverability

With CleanTalk, every checkout form is validated in real time — only real customers complete orders.
Result: fewer errors, cleaner data, better performance.

Why It Matters

Fake signups lead to:

  • Lost communication (no confirmation or password reset) 
  • CRM clutter and wrong email lists
  • High bounce rates 
  • IP or domain blacklisting

How to Enable Fake Signup Protection

  1. Install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/cleantalk-spam-protect/)
  2. Register at CleanTalk.org (https://cleantalk.org/register) and add your website
  3. In your Dashboard, enable “Email Existence Check / Notification”
  4. Optionally turn on “Non-Existent Email Notification” for instant feedback

This feature is included in the standard Anti-Spam plan — no coding or extra modules required.

Combine with Other CleanTalk Protections

For maximum defense, combine Email Validation with:

Continuous Updates & UX Improvements

CleanTalk’s detection engine is updated daily. Support for encrypted SMTP improves reliability, and the Non-Existent Email Notification (released Dec 2024) now gives instant feedback, reducing typos and abandoned forms.
The system evolves constantly to counter new spam tactics — you don’t need to adjust anything.

Need Help or Want to Learn More?

Have questions about WordPress fake signup protection or WooCommerce integration?
Leave a comment or create a support ticket (https://cleantalk.org/my/support).

Further reading:

Conclusion & CTA

Fake email signups silently damage your site’s data, performance, and reputation.
CleanTalk’s real-time email checker and instant user feedback deliver clean signups and trustworthy analytics.

Get started now — register your free trial at (https://cleantalk.org/register?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=email_checker_update_2025) and see how many fake accounts your site can block automatically.

You can leave a comment below or create a private ticket here.
We will be happy to answer your questions.
How to install CleanTalk Anti-Spam on your website.
Create an account or log in.
Thank you!

Comments

57 responses to “How to Stop Fake Email Signups in WordPress (2025 Update)”

  1. Mr John Kennedy Avatar

    Thanks for this update. Pleased you are keeping our clients sites protected.
    Regards
    John Kennedy

  2. Mr John Kennedy Avatar

    Thanks,

    Pleased you are keeping our clients sites protected with this update to email verification in real time.
    John

  3. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    Can you make a plug-in for “Email Subscribers”?

  4. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    Anti-Spam plugin can check the submission form so it will check emails of subscribers for existence

  5. Scott N Avatar
    Scott N

    You forgot to mention whether this new ’email verification’ protection is automatic, or if we have to enable it. Let us know, please.

    – Scott

  6. Bill G Avatar

    What happens when in real time it detects a comment form with an invalid email address?

    Does the person completing the comment form get immediate notification?

    Or, does the site administrator receive notification?

    Does it prevent the comment from being posted to the website?

    Is there a way to turn this feature on or off?

  7. Francis O'Neill Avatar

    Sounds like you are making some serious progress guys – thanks for the update. I’m sure it is going to prove very helpful.

  8. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    email verification is automatic. This check is on the server’s side.

  9. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    When this filter triggers it’s equal to blocking spam user. The comment will be blocked, the request will be saved in CleanTalk logs. We can lower this filter for specific service.

  10. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    Thank you Francis O’Neill!

    We always strive to improve our service.

  11. Diane Bedard Avatar

    I have a Mailchimp signup form on my site. Can CleanTalk keep the fake emails from getting into my Mailchimp list? They seem to sign up and then “click” every link in the email I send out.

  12. Frank Avatar

    Hello I am replying to your real time email verification. Thank you for contacting me.

  13. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    @Diane Bedard

    Thank you for your question. If this form protected by CleanTalk then yes.

    You can test it with st********@*****le.com

    Contact us if you have any questions

  14. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    @Frank

    Hello, do you have any questions?

    Contact us anytime.

    Best regards

  15. Chris McCurley Avatar

    Clean Talk doesn’t seem to be working for my site. When I try to go to my site from my phone it always redirects to some spam site. Not sure if I did something wrong in setting it up but it’s not working for me.

    Thanks!

  16. Serge Avatar

    Hello, Chris.
    We need more details to troubleshoot this issue.
    Please, create a private ticket here:
    https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open
    We’ll test your website when we learn all necessary data.
    Thank you.

  17. M Avatar

    How is it checking? Is it sending an email to the suspect email? If so, what email is it using to check?

  18. Serge Avatar

    Hello.
    No, we do not send a test e-mail. We use HELO/EHLO requests plus our own method.
    Thank you.

  19. Владимир_И Avatar
    Владимир_И

    Hello, it is very good. i like!

  20. Yakov Avatar
    Yakov

    This feature can be bad, if somebody just mistypes email address. For example na**@***il.coN
    Such leads will be lost.

    There must be an option to disable this feature.

  21. Almaz Magsumov Avatar
    Almaz Magsumov

    Hello.

    You can always contact us through our support system to request to disable this feature:
    https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

    Also, email in your example in non-existence and you can’t send mail to such an email.

    Thank you.

  22. Yandira bali Avatar

    thank , plugin cleantlk is best plugin for my site

  23. Ankit kumar Avatar

    Thanks for support

  24. Osman Avatar
    Osman

    How does this feature work?

    I use ActiveCampaign email optin form on my website and I tried to regsiter using one of the email ID which is marked as spam.. just to test. And the registration was done. Cleantalk did not prevent the registration… so I dont know how Cleantalk is protecting against spam email registrations. I have already installed Cleantalk on my website.

    Please explain. Thanks

  25. Serge Baburin Avatar
    Serge Baburin

    Please, be sure to do all tests not to be logged as an admin user. If you have more questions please contact us by our private Ticket System:

    https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

  26. Gregor Avatar

    Hi,
    Today I am attacked many times by e-mails. Last from li************@********ed.com.
    Anti-Spam by Clean Talk is not working properly.

    Thanks

  27. Almaz Magsumov Avatar
    Almaz Magsumov

    Hello, Gregor.

    We need more details about the issue. Please, create a ticket in our Private Support System:
    https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

    Also, post a few examples of IPs or emails of missed spam requests there.

    Thank you!

  28. Hoercomfort Avatar

    Vielen Dank,
    das hat fast alles gut funtioniert, außer das die IP meine Seite wurde auf der Blacklist eingetragen, und das ist falsch.
    Vielen Dank.

  29. CleanTalk Support Avatar
    CleanTalk Support

    Hello Hoercomfort.
    Please, read this guide to know how to remove your IP form blackilsts.
    https://cleantalk.org/help/deletion-from-public-page
    We are glad to help you in the future, so, please ask us if you need any help with CleanTalk. Contact us via su*****@*******lk.org
    Best regards,

  30. Basil Simon Avatar

    I am not sure what is going on here but after upgrading I tested my email subscriber form by entering a dummy email adress. It went straight through to my sites database? This plugin did not catch it? Why?

  31. basil simon Avatar

    In addition to the comment above I would like to add that I just asked a friend to put in a dummy email too (not an admin) and it still went through to my database? I am starting to think this plugin is a scam. Please do convince me otherwise.

  32. Serge Avatar

    Hello, Basil Simon.
    We need more details about the issue.
    Please, send us a screenshot of the CleanTalk settings via email:
    su*****@*******lk.org
    Thank you.

  33. roberto Avatar

    gracias por proteger los sitios.

  34. aeryn watts Avatar

    Cleantalk is best plugin for my website.

  35. LUIS ARTURO ARIAS HUAMANI Avatar

    HACE UN MOMENTO ACABO DE INSTALAR ESTE PLUGIN PERO AUN ME FALTA MUCHO POR APRENDER ME GUSTARIA APRENDER COMO CONFIGURAR EL SERVICIO DE API SI ALGUIEN ME PUEDE AYUDAR PORFAVOR

  36. Cleantalk support Avatar

    Hello, LUIS.
    Please, check this link: https://cleantalk.org/help/api-cleantalk-all. There is information about CleanTalk APIs.
    If you have more questions please contact us by our private Ticket System: https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

  37. Ca Sa Stii Avatar

    I just installed your plugin and when I tried to activate it with the website email it redirect me here.

  38. Rabin Gurung Avatar

    Hi, I just download this plugin and installation into my website there are some error
    Errors:
    2021-01-31 06:18:51: Cron: Error occurred while updating SpamFireWall local base. Error: SFW_DISABLED
    You can get support any time here: https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cleantalk-spam-protect.
    Can you help me please? thank you.

  39. Serge Avatar

    Hello, Rabin.
    Please, re-install the CleanTalk Anti-Spam Plugin with the Complete Deactivation option:
    • WordPress Admin Page —> Settings —> Anti-Spam by CleanTalk —> Advanced settings —> set the option “Complete Deactivation” to “On” —> Save Changes;
    • WordPress Admin Page —> Plugins —> Installed plugins —> Anti-Spam by CleanTalk —> Deactivate and Delete.

    Then install it anew:
    https://cleantalk.org/help/install-wordpress

    Did it help?

  40. CleanTalk support team Avatar

    Hello, Rabin Gurung.

    We have fixed the server-side bugs. Now all should work fine. 

    If you still see any notices in the dashboard, just save the plugin settings.

    WBR,

  41. Jessica Avatar

    I have numerous potential customers that are experiencing issues with their email being flagged as spam when submitting an online form response. The error states “Forbidden. Contains contacts. Username seems to be spammer.”

  42. Almaz Magsumov Avatar
    Almaz Magsumov

    Hello Jessica.

    Please contact us via our support system:
    https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

    In this way we can check everything that is required.

    Thank you!

  43. Website admin Avatar

    Your plugin is really good. I recently added into my site and it is working good.

  44. Kurt Lysek Avatar
    Kurt Lysek

    Affordable and Effective! I give it a 5 star rating for protecting my sites from comment spammers!

  45. Anton Mishin Avatar

    Kurt, thanks for your comment and feedback!
    We are glad to be helpful.

  46. Marcela Avatar
    Marcela

    @marcelamelo

  47. Jeff Alberts Avatar
    Jeff Alberts

    I installed the trial version, and had it check for spam accounts. Out of about 1600 spam accounts, it only detected about 500. And when I told it to delete all users in the check results, it crashed the sql database. Had to wait about an hour for the site to respond again. Then I had to delete what remained 10 at a time. Not very helpful.

    And when I run the check again, it finds 4 or 5 more. I delete those, and it finds a few more. This is not a good use of my time.

    1. Serge Baburin Avatar
      Serge Baburin

      Hello,

      We would like to help you to fix this. Please contact us by our private Ticket System:

      https://cleantalk.org/my/support/open

  48. Ted Avatar
    Ted

    Hello,

    I was asked to confirm my email…..I found that my email ended with .com.com! I wander how come? I cannot remember the password, how can I correct my email address to confirm my account?

    1. Almaz M Avatar
      Almaz M

      Hello.

      We’ve replied to your request. Let’ continue our conversation in your support request.

      Thank you!

  49. Mike UK Avatar

    I used a service similar to this on our work’s email server, and we got blocked by Spam Rats When I contacted them, it was because our IP was blocked for logging on to SMTP servers, then disconnecting. I can’t see how to turn off this feature in clean talk, so I’ve had to deactivate. My personal IP has now ended up on a blacklist.

    I’m not certain how Cleantalk connects to the email server to validate, but if It’s done using the user’s IP address, then many will get blocked when testing their forms due to multiple requests.

  50. Chris Mcdonald Avatar

    Interesting insights on real-time email address existence validation!
    What are the main challenges businesses face when implementing this in their systems, especially regarding false positives or negatives? Also, how do you recommend balancing email validation accuracy with user experience, particularly in high-traffic scenarios?

    1. Serge Avatar
      Serge

      @Chris Mcdonald The feature works automatically. The accuracy is very high. To be sure you can monitor your Anti-Spam logs: https://cleantalk.org/my/show_requests. You can also use our notification feature (https://cleantalk.org/help/event-notifications) and edit the server response (https://cleantalk.org/help/overwrite-message-for-blocked-visitors)

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