Most developers assume their contact forms “just work.”
They don’t.
I’ve audited dozens of production sites where contact forms silently failed for weeks or months — no errors, no alerts, no clue. The only signal? Leads mysteriously stopped coming in.
Here are some real signs your contact form is broken, even if everything looks fine.
Common Signs a Contact Form Is Failing
*1. Submissions suddenly drop to zero
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If traffic stays steady but form submissions fall off a cliff, that’s not a coincidence.
Common causes:
Hosting changes
PHP / WordPress updates
SMTP misconfiguration
Spam filters rejecting outbound mail
*2. Emails land in spam (or vanish entirely)
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Your form might still be submitting — but messages never reach your inbox.
This happens when:
Forms rely on mail() instead of SMTP
SPF / DKIM / DMARC aren’t configured
Server IPs get flagged
From the user’s perspective?
They think they contacted you. You never see it.
*3. No confirmation message or redirect
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If users submit the form and nothing happens (or the page refreshes), many assume it failed — even if it didn’t.
UX issue = lost conversions.
*4. It works on desktop but not mobile
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JavaScript conflicts, CSS overlays, or mobile-specific validation bugs can break forms on phones while desktop works perfectly.
Unless you test both, you won’t catch it.
*5. You only find out when someone complains
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The worst signal of all:
“Hey, I filled out your form last week — did you get it?”
That means you already lost trust and time.
Why This Is So Easy to Miss
- Forms fail silently
- Browsers don’t report email delivery errors
- WordPress updates can break plugins overnight
- No built-in alerting exists by default Unless you actively test or monitor forms, you’re flying blind.
How to Catch This Early
At a minimum:
Test every form weekly
Send test submissions to multiple email addresses
Monitor submit events (not just page loads)
For a deeper breakdown (with examples and fixes), I wrote this guide:
👉 Signs Your Contact Form Is Broken
(https://formhuntsman.com/blog/signs-broken-contact-form)
It walks through:
Real-world failure scenarios
What to check first
How devs actually catch form issues in production
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