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 Post Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2014 9:12 pm 
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 5:09 am
Posts: 9438
Location: The state of confusion; I just use Wyoming for mail.
There is no actual issue involved here. This post is intended to just be informative. :)

Another thread brought up a topic that causes me to shake my head in wonder. Some will still build a site today and want a contact link. Actually there is nothing at all wrong with that and in many cases is absolutely necessary. So what is the problem?

The problem is that too many site builders still insist on using the depreciated function, 'mailto:'. Yes, it is super easy and fast to code but what really happens when it is used? In some cases it no longer even works. If you just use 'mailto:'address'' it will probably work with any major browser but if you start adding variables to the email call such as the subject line, depending on the browser the visitor is using, it may not work at all. And what of the site visitor that does not have an email client installed and relies strictly on web mail? The 'mailto:' will not work at all.

Then we have the spammers... If a web designer is lazy enough to use the 'mailto:' function they are probably also too lazy to disguise the email address by breaking it down to sections using JavaScript. So now a spammer has a valid email that is associated with the site. That spammer submits an email with code embedded to steal the contact list. This is one of the ways that spammers harvest email addresses and too many site designers make it too easy for them.

So how should it be done? Here is an example:
http://lachsoft.jaylach.com/contact.html
This is a contact form that I built. It probably took me 3-4 hours to put together rather than the 60 seconds to do a 'mailto:'. So why 'waste' the 3-4 hours?

1) There is no email address involved for a spammer to harvest. This also means that the spammer cannot get at my contact list. Of course security would be #1.

2) With a form the type of info submitted can be controlled to a point. This aspect of using a form can cover several levels. Go ahead and look at http://lachsoft.jaylach.com/contact.html and try to spam the thing. ;) Where you would do the spam would be in the comment area. What good is spam without an address? Above the comment entry field of the form is a warning,
Code:
If you need to include a web address please use the format 'site_name-com'.
 In the ongoing battle against spam 'http', '//' and '.com' will be refused by this form.

Try it. If you use http:// or .com, etc. the form validation routines will reject it. Yes, it took me a long time to build the form and validation but I get about 2 successful spam inputs a year.

3) You can make the form interactive. Again looking at http://lachsoft.jaylach.com/contact.html notice that there is an area of the form that asks what day of the week would be best for me to return the contact. Below that is a field for the best time of that day to contact. If you click that the best day should be Saturday or Sunday the available times for the return contact will change.

4) If you look at the form you will notice that the visitor has the option to request return contact by a phone call. If the selection on phone contact is no than the visitor can skip the phone number entry but if phone contact is yes the form will not submit without a phone number being entered.

Do NOT use 'mailto:', it is bad news all the way around. It is bad for security and also bad for getting the actual info needed.

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