One of the most important things for a website which hopes to provide good quality support is to be readily contactable and the best way of doing this has been to provide a support email address. Unfortunately, such addresses are easily harvested by spam robots, who's task is simply to trawl the internet looking for 'naked' or poorly concealed email addresses and adding them to the spammers lists.
Spammers use automated robots to capture these addresses and add them to SPAM databases. Instead use an email cloaking script whenever you need to show your email address. You can search at Google.com using the phrase "email cloaking" and come up with a lot of options. Just pick the one that works best for your particular needs.
Spam is a word with so many negative connotations, almost entirely attached to the online world. Yet today I saw something different that surprised me.
Joel Comm created a great script that is not embedded within your webpage, but almost like an ajax tool. It pops up right infront of you appearing as a ghost contact, but does not reload another page. His new product is called "My Contact Station".
This SECURE Contact Script was specifically designed for YOU to TAKE BACK CONTROL of your INBOX, giving you a PROFESSIONAL-LOOKING contact solution.
As a basic universal service contact form, My Contact Station can be used on multiple sites, including WordPress Blogs... It will block form spam and prevent pagerank bleeding.
Joel says, "Check out this amazing tool!
- Secure Contact Form - Enables your site visitors to easily contact you
- Reduces Spam by preventing email harvesting.
- Reduces Spam by using Captcha to block SpamBots from submitting the form.
- Secure FeedBack Form - Get anonymous feedback from your visitors.
- Use for any kind of questionnaire for quick feedback.
- You can use one form/installation for ALL your sites.
- Prevents PageRank Bleeding by using no-follow. An SEO Technique.
- Beautiful Web 2.0 Look and Ajax Hover Display.
- Works in All Major Browsers. Firefox, IE, Opera.
- Simple and Quick Installation. Unzip > Edit a Few Files > Upload
- Step By Step Installation Video and Installation Instructions.
- Requires No Databases, Works on WordPress and Other Platforms.
- Works Via PHP, GD2 Support Required
- New Secure Methods In Development for Upcoming Releases
It amazing that Joel Comm is selling this product for only $7! It seems that now a days more and more people are using the $7 Dollar Secrets by Jonanthan Leger. But $7 for this scripts puts it in the vast majority of webmasters! You can see the script in action by visiting My Contact Station.
In any case, I hate spam so I put together a list on how to avoid this and help yourself from receiving a spam inbox.
- Take the time to set up different email addresses for different purposes. Have one for business communications, another for personal and another one for shopping online. That way you can avoid the risk of exposing one e-mail address to all of your contacts.
- If you have an email service that has Spam protection, USE THEM!
- Never reply to a spammer or click the "remove my address" link. That only lets them know that your address is good.
- Don't list your email address on your own web site in plain html or as a link to a contact form. Spammers use automated robots to capture these addresses and add them to SPAM databases. * As discussed above.
- Webmaster should use My Contact Station new tool and system to help you achieve less or no spam at all.
- Don't display your email address in newsgroup postings, chat rooms or in an online service's membership directory. Sometimes email spammers use these sources to harvest email addresses.