VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

melissa eX

What's the best way to have your email address on your website - and maybe have a link to open an email without getting eaten up by spam? I know having the address as a graphic is a good idea - and I thought simply having a "click here to email" instead of an actual address was also a solution - but I'm not sure now. And is there anyway to combine the two methods - provided they work?

thanks!

asnively · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:17 am Post subject:

By using this!
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Lee Gordon · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 12:58 am Post subject:

I have my phone number in graphic form on my Contact page but I have my e-mail address as code. If you use a "Mailto" tag, as your "Click here to mail" function, it is also part of the page's code so it is just as easy for bots to find as just putting your address on the page.
What I have done is add the following meta tag in the "Head" section of my Contact page.

This is to prevent that page from being crawled by search engines or other web bots. Please note, I have that tag only on my Contact page and not anywhere else on my website because, naturally, I do want the rest of the site to crop up in search engines.
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 1:24 am Post subject:

masking your email won't work. Spiders are much smarter than they used to be. Try using a contact form instead of an email link. If you keep it simple, it's not a hassle to use.
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JBarrett · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:03 am Post subject:

Not long ago I discovered a free service offered by Google:

http://www.google.com/recaptcha/mailhide/

I had previously used a similar service offered at tinymail.me, partly for the masking and partly to get a really short URL that I could toss into Twitter posts if desired. However, they unexpectedly vanished a month or two back, and I found the Google option in my search for a replacement.
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bobsouer · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 8:24 am Post subject:

Justin,

That is very cool.
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Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 11:45 am Post subject:

Awesome, Justin. Just implemented a modified version of it on my site. Works great!
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anthonyVO · 14th Avenue Joined: 09 Aug 2005 Posts: 1470 Location: NYC

That's a great service, Justin. Thanks for the link.

With that said, I'd put the burden on yourself not your visitor or potential client. The best thing I've done is have Google mail be my domain's mail server.

I made some video clips on how to do this and i believe Caryn Clark and a few others have done this. Call me and I'd be glad to help you get it set up.

-Anthony

asnively · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:12 pm Post subject:

Yay for Justin! I'll start using it right away!
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melissa eX · Posted: Thu Jul 08, 2010 5:28 pm Post subject:

I think I'll be calling you Anthony!

Good find Justin but my initial thoughts jive with Anthony's. I hate those things - half the time they're done SO well you can't even read them. I've left sites when I haven't gotten them on the first try. And try doing it on your phone.... Noble cause it is but I don't think I'd risk it.

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 10:02 am Post subject:

Last night, I decided to be a nice guy and left my email exposed to the world on my website. In less than 12 hours, I was magically added to a foreign Yahoo group.

Sorry, but captcha or a contact form is a reasonable barrier to entry that clients should understand.
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Lee Gordon · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 12:42 pm Post subject:

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:27 pm Post subject:

Silly cliches aside, Lee, is there empirical data of any lost customers due to jumping through what is now a common hoop? Not necessarily captcha, but a contact form of some type?
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asnively · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:04 pm Post subject:

I've decided to just put my cell phone number on my web page and have them call me for the email address.
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COURVO · Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 5:19 pm Post subject:

I've had my mobile # and my main email address on my demo site, my twitter profile, my facebook page, and my blog site since day-1. No captcha.

I can't think of an instance when it's been abused. But I can think of a number of instances when it's brought me work.

CourVO
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