Using Image for Email Address

[force]

@DoubleDee

Maybe I was getting confused with a “Comments Form”?

So I would just create an HTML Form and use mail() to e-mail the User’s Form Inputs to me directly, right?

And why is it this prevents spam and my e-mail being harvested??

The mail() function is just how the message gets delivered. You can put checks and filters in place before it reaches that point in the code.

[DoubleDee]

@Force_Flow

The mail() function is just how the message gets delivered. You can put checks and filters in place before it reaches that point in the code.

So it sounds like there is no benefit of preventing “Bot E-mail Harvesting” by using a “Mail To Form” (versus just displaying your “Mail To Addy”)?

Debbie

P.S. This is what I ended up with for now to display my e-mail…

<p id=“addy”>“<b>debbie & #64 ;mywebsite & #46 ;com</b>”</p>

[felgall]

@DoubleDee

So it sounds like there is no benefit of preventing “Bot E-mail Harvesting” by using a “Mail To Form” (versus just displaying your “Mail To Addy”)?

That’s not true - using a form has many advantages.

1. It will always work whether the visitor has an email program or not.
2. It keeps the email address out of the web page so the spambot can never steal your address - to send you spam it has to try to use the form.
3. If the protection you build into the form stops blocking all the spambots you change the form to use different means of blocking the spambot - with an email address on the web page once the spambots get it you can’t stop them spamming you.

With a form there’s no email address for the spambots to harvest because it gets added after the form is submitted where the spambot can’t access it at all.

[DoubleDee]

@felgall

With a form there’s no email address for the spambots to harvest because it gets added after the form is submitted where the spambot can’t access it at all.

My e-mail address would get added by something like PHP?

And so you are saying that Spambots can’t see that PHP is adding “someemail@mywebsite.com”. Is that correct?

Debbie

[Stevie_D]

@DoubleDee

So it sounds like there is no benefit of preventing “Bot E-mail Harvesting” by using a “Mail To Form” (versus just displaying your “Mail To Addy”)?

With a form, your email address is hidden from the visitor (or at least, it should be!), so they can’t harvest it - all they can do is to use the form to bombard you with spam, which is a lot of effort, so you don’t usually get too much of it.

With a plain email address, they can harvest it and use it as often as they want, and sell it on as often as they want. That makes email addresses more valuable than forms.

In an ideal world, particularly if you’re offering a customer contact point, you’d use both a form and a mailto, so that people could contact you by whichever method they prefer - but sometimes that means jumping through more security hoops than is worth your while.

[logic_earth]

For contact forms…or any form really just use Wufoo. Let them handle all the Spam and security. Wufoo: Online Form Builder - Create Web Forms & Surveys

The free account would be more then enough for you to get started with.