Integration

Form protection, hiding content from bots, and typical CrawlerDetect usage.

Form spam protection

How it works

1. User submits the form.
2. FormIt runs preHook crawlerDetectBlock before validation and send.
3. If User-Agent is a bot → form is not processed; message from settings is shown.
4. If human → form is processed as usual.

See crawlerDetectBlock.

Regular form (FormIt)

Add crawlerDetectBlock to FormIt’s &preHooks. If you have other preHooks, list them comma-separated:

modx

&preHooks=`crawlerDetectBlock,otherHook`

fenom

'preHooks' => 'crawlerDetectBlock,otherHook'

AJAX form (FetchIt)

FetchIt processes forms via FormIt on the server. To protect the form:

1. In FetchIt config set the URL/page where FormIt is called.
2. In that page’s FormIt call add &preHooks=crawlerDetectBlock``.
3. When a bot is blocked FetchIt gets an error response and shows the message from crawlerdetect_block_message.

AJAX form (SendIt)

SendIt uses FormIt; parameters are set in presets (file from si_path_to_presets). To protect the form:

1. Open your presets file (your copy, not the default core/components/sendit/presets/sendit.inc.php — it is overwritten on SendIt update).
2. Add preHooks with crawlerDetectBlock to the needed preset.
3. When a bot is blocked SendIt returns an error and shows the message from CrawlerDetect settings.

Preset example:

return [
  'contact' => [
    'preHooks' => 'crawlerDetectBlock',
    'hooks' => 'email,FormItSaveForm',
    'validate' => 'name:required,email:email:required',
    'emailTo' => 'manager@site.com',
    'emailSubject' => 'Contact form',
    // ...
  ],
];

If preHooks already exists, add comma-separated: 'preHooks' => 'crawlerDetectBlock,otherHook'.

Hiding content from bots

Snippet isCrawler returns "1" (bot) or "0" (not bot). Call it uncached and use for conditional output.

Widget for humans only

modx

[[!isCrawler:eq=`0`:then=`[[$chatWidget]]`]]

fenom

{if $modx->runSnippet('isCrawler', []) == '0'}
  {$modx->getChunk('chatWidget')}
{/if}

Analytics for humans only

modx

[[!isCrawler:eq=`0`:then=`[[$googleAnalytics]]`]]

fenom

{if $modx->runSnippet('isCrawler', []) == '0'}
  {$modx->getChunk('googleAnalytics')}
{/if}

See isCrawler.

Typical scenarios

Contact form

Add crawlerDetectBlock to FormIt preHooks. See Quick start.

Multiple forms on the site

Use the same preHook for all forms. Add crawlerDetectBlock to &preHooks in each FormIt call.

“N users online” counter

Run the counter snippet only when the visitor is not a bot:

modx

[[!isCrawler:eq=`0`:then=`[[!yourVisitorCounterSnippet]]`]]

fenom

{if $modx->runSnippet('isCrawler', []) == '0'}
  {$modx->runSnippet('yourVisitorCounterSnippet', [])}
{/if}

“Request a call” form (FetchIt)

1. Ensure FetchIt is configured to call FormIt on the server.
2. In FormIt on the target page add &preHooks=crawlerDetectBlock``.
3. When a bot is blocked FetchIt shows the message from CrawlerDetect settings.

E‑commerce — “Viewing this product”

Exclude bots from product view count:

modx

[[!isCrawler:eq=`0`:then=`[[!msProductViews? &id=`[[*id]]`]]`]]

fenom

{if $modx->runSnippet('isCrawler', []) == '0'}
  {$modx->runSnippet('msProductViews', ['id' => $productId])}
{/if}