Creating a Contact Form

[AllyPitman]

Hi Grant

I would really appreciate your help with this one - what is the quickest/easiest/cheapest method to creating a contact form for my website so I don't need to have my email address up there. I'm fed up of all the SPAM!
I've tried a free form generator from sourceforge.net but half the information goes missing and the other half gets all mixed up.

Any suggestions would be great!
Thank you

[Grant Holmes]

I'll do an assumption that you know HTML or PHP well enough to understand how to correctly build the form. To use the piece of software I mention below, you must have a correctly built form first.

I use a piece of software called Forms To GO. I used to just use the CGI/Bin form stuff provided by hosts but that can be quirky too.

Forms to Go allows you to build forms in HTML, PHP, ASP, or Perl. I use PHP FWIW. Depending on your sophistication, you can even have it dump data to a database, send the sender a confirm email, etc. I use it on all the sites I do anymore.

FWIW, there is another little utility called the "NATATA Anti-Spam Encoder". It allows you to encode your email with an ASCII type code that spam bots find hard to read. Instead of just seeing joe@joesmith.com on the page, both visually and in code, the code looks more like:
a href="mailto:&#106&#111&#101&#64&#106&#111&#101&#115&#109&#105&#116&#104&#46&#99&#111&#109>

But visually looks the same to your visitor.
Some people like forms, some don't.

[AllyPitman]

Thanks so much for the advice, in particular the NATATA Anti-Spam Encoder looks fantastic - thank you so much for the tip!!!!!!!

[Grant Holmes]

Glad to help!!

Please keep me in mind if you or someone you know should need their web presence upgraded!!

[VoiceHaven]

hi Grant,

You have some great solutions posted here!!! :)

Using Java Script is another good way of breaking up email addresses so the bots cannot pick them up. The only drawback could be that someone may have JavaScript turned off in their browser for security reasons and the email link would not work then. But the reality IS.... 99.999% of web surfing is done with it turned on. Most people don't even know that you can turn it off.... and don't.

You can also make the email link a graphic image on the webpage and then have the supporting email function within the code. Not always the best solution though.

[Grant Holmes]

VH:
Good points. However, most people would NOT be able to do the Javascript thing to break up their address, so isn't a great solution. The Natatta thing above is the simplest for sure.

The issue with using an image with your email "behind" it in the code is that you accomplish nothing unless you use something like the Natatta Encoder to hide the address.

A spam bot couldn't care less about what we see in the browser. It can only work on the code in the page. It's also sometimes problematic to use an image in line in a sentence when you want to say "click here to email me" or somesuch.