Emails on websites.

[ckvkkeek]

This is the main reason I wanted to come to this forum. On the main website, there is an article dealing with posting emails on websites. I strongly disagree with its conclusion. Here are my reasons.
1. Many users use webmail, so when they click on your link it opens their email client and it is very possible that the email will never get sent. They just aren't smart enough to realize that it hasn't sent and that they should copy and past it to their wemail service. This happen with the minister of our church, before we hired him he was emailing churches that had this system. But it would open up Outlook to send it, but since he did not have it configured he had many emails that never sent.
2. SPAM, SPAM and more SPAM. Using webforms to send emails you can predefine a subject line that can be added to users spam filters to allow them through. Every email sent from my churches site adds [HPCC] to the subject, so when they see this in the subject they know it is from the website. By adding the email to the site, you are increasing the likely hood that the email will be overlooked due to the amount of spam.
3. The key to email on a website is not how it is sent, but whether or not it is replied to. So if you reply, how it gets sent is not important.
4. The argument that it may not be sent is easily fixed by testing your forms. Not a hard step, and something you should do regardless.

Thoughts?

ck
http://www.harvestpointecc.com

[ckvkkeek]

Flutem3 said this in another thread:
I did not understand what you were talking about when you talked about emailing. Would you give me an example of what you were talking about?

Here is the article:
http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/on_website_design_dos.php
Third bullet on the "do" list. And fyi, that page is formated wrong. Forces you to scroll to the right.

Here is a form on our church website:
http://www.harvestpointecc.com/EmailForms/contactpubpray.asp

Here is a church that opens up the "contact us" in an email client:
http://www.lovedtolove.org

Our website stops folks from having to have something setup on their machine. We take that burden on ourselves. The other church requires that you have Outlook (or some other email client) configured on your system.

Hopes this makes my post clearer.

[youthman]

I tend to use forms (http://www.soleproductions.com/contact.html) on all of my sites due to email harvesters and problems you can run into with email clients. By using an online form with a php or maybe a cgi script, you give any visitor the same opportunity to email you without having to worry about their computer's configuration.

[flutem3]

I tend to use forms (http://www.soleproductions.com/contact.html) on all of my sites due to email harvesters and problems you can run into with email clients. By using an online form with a php or maybe a cgi script, you give any visitor the same opportunity to email you without having to worry about their computer's configuration.

Hi, Mike,

I want to ask you something. Do you use forms instead of email contacts such as "to email the church, click here" type of thing?

I had not considered that. What is it that makes them safer to use? Can't those addresses be harvested as well? I really don't know and would like to.

I would like to be just as safe as possible on our website and not leave us open to "junk."

Thanks.

Carol

[youthman]

Do you use forms instead of email contacts such as "to email the church, click here" type of thing? Yes. Take a look at our church website (http://fbcgrant.com/contact.html). I setup a main contact form that is
emailed to the church secretary. If you click on "Email Pastor Mike" a popup window will open and the form is emailed to my email address. Harvesters look at the HTML code on your website. If you have a link that says Email Me and the link goes to yourname@yourchurch.com the email harvester can see your email address in the HTML code and collect it. If you look at the code on church contact us page (http://fbcgrant.com/contact.html), you will see a line of code that says:

<form action="contactscript.php" method="post" name="FormName">

When a user clicks submit, the info they keyed in is sent to the contactscript.php file that is hosted on my server. The email Harvester has no way of looking at the code on that file therefore it is "safe" from email harvesters.

[ckvkkeek]

Posting your email on your site invites spam. No thanks.

[youthman]

I've never used it but I think there is some code or a script that can scramble email address on a webpage to help prevent harvesters from collecting email addresses if you choose not to use a form.

[chrisb_ebc]

I use both, email links as well as forms. I use forms for a more formal approach on our contact page. And then at the bottom of each page I have a link for webteam'AT'exeterbiblechurch.org I also encode all my email address into JavaScript to to keep from harvesters, etc from snagging it. I also have initiated spam filters on our server and I have seen very little spam come through. Here is the program that I use to encode my email address's. They have a web based on, as well as a downloadable program for OS X based systems. http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoder - I really have no preference over email or forms on my pages. I really actually never thought about it. I think there are different applications for both. I don't think you should be cautious to use either.

Also I got a email a few months back from our hosting service that there has been some threat on using forms and php scripts cause people knowledgeable enough can find the form and have it process spam to send out. If I remember correctly. They recommended if at all possible change the php script file name to something obscure and harder to find.

[David Gillaspey]

I use and can recommend Jack Born's Ultimate Form Mail (http://ultimateformmail.com/index) script for PHP. I own a license just for the Basic version (for my website), but there's also a Pro version available that saves data to a mySQL database. I may eventually upgrade.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[youthman]

I just found this free script and it is great as well http://www.mindpalette.com/formprocessing/index.php

[McDLT]

I find most form mail annoying. (waiting for the tomatoes to stop flying). Most times there is not a place for the question I want to ask and most times I don't necessarily want to ask a question, but have a comment. Some people just don't know how to implement them well.

I live with whatever spam I get, because I want people to be able to contact me. To avoid harvesters you can always write out the @ symbol.

Just some thoughts.

[youthman]

(youthman looks around for rotten tomatoe) :D

[goakes]

Actually any good email harvester is already looking for different ways that email addresses are encoded. I know that I had mine done in complete ASCII and still got hit pretty soon. The only problem with PHP forms now is that if they are not properly coded they can have headers injected into them and be used for spam purposes also.

[David Gillaspey]

I find most forum mail annoying. Hi Dawn,

I don't worry much about grammar and spelling in the posts, but I wonder if you meant "form mail" in the quoted line? I think in this case it's an important distinction, though I suppose members have understood all along what you meant.

I, too, find form mail to be annoying, for much the same reasons that you mentioned, but I understand why some churches would choose form mail as a means to contact church staff over email links.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
Forum Administrator

[McDLT]

Hi Dawn, I don't worry much about grammar and spelling in the posts, but I wonder if you meant "form mail" in the quoted line?

Yes I meant form - thanks for noticing. I guess I've been typing forum a lot lately. ;)