I just thought I would explain why we use email forms on our websites, and don't just put a user's email address on their webpages. The main reason we use email forms is that email addresses are offers ‘harvested’ (i.e. scanned) by spammers looking at your website. This is done via automated programs. Popular and larger sites are at first targets for this sort of activity. Once your popularity and search engine ranking goes up.. and amount of spam you receive will too.
Your email provider will probably have some spam prevention in place, but the tougher this spam prevention gets, the more likely you will end up with emails from customers that get lost. Email forms are also popular because
- Convenience - emails can be sent from any computer (public or private) without special email accounts being required.
- It allows you to control the required information that you need. In fact besides name and email you can required (or optionally) add phone number fields – multiple choice questions, you name it.
- You can control where the email is going. You probably won’t want to be first contact forever, so you can get the email redirected to different people and departments, e.g. membership, support, billing etc.
- Fortunately, it’s quite a common feature now and users are getting more used to it.
Nick.
