How many form fields: Crawl Audit check 118

Short answer: every extra field is another reason to give up. Ask only for what you need to take the next step. Check 118 warns when the forms on the page have more than five visible fields between them.

What Crawl Audit checks

• Crawl Audit counts visible inputs inside <form> elements (not hidden fields or buttons), across all forms on the page.
• Pass: no form, or five fields or fewer. Warning: more than five.

Five is Crawl Audit's own rule of thumb for lead forms. Two short forms on one page, such as a newsletter box and a contact form, are added together. It counts <input> elements only, not <select> or <textarea>.

What the research says

• Baymard Institute's 2024 checkout study found the average checkout had 11.3 form fields, and that "most sites need only 8 form fields in total for a checkout flow". That's checkout, not a contact form, but the direction is the same.
• Nielsen Norman Group: "Eliminating unnecessary fields requires more time, but the reduced user effort and increased completion rates make it worthwhile."
• web.dev: "The simplest way to reduce form complexity is to remove unnecessary fields."

Cutting fields

• For a first contact: name, email or phone, and one message box is often enough.
• Ask the rest later, on the call or in the follow-up email.
• Make optional fields clearly optional, or drop them.
• Use autofill so the fields you keep are quick (check 119).

On devmarde.com

Our homepage forms had five visible fields between them on 6 October, so it passes.

Sources

• Baymard Institute, Checkout optimization: 5 ways to minimize form fields (June 2024), checked 6 October 2026.
• Nielsen Norman Group, Website forms usability: top 10 recommendations; web.dev, Payment and address form best practices.