Do you also make this mistake on your website?

On almost every website you have an option to contact us. On many websites we see a common mistake there: stating the e-mail address. You can then click on this e-mail address to easily send a message. But is this really that simple? And is this really so wise? Read in this blog about the disadvantages of stating your email address on your website.

spam

If you have a website, it will also have your e-mail address listed somewhere on that site. You have done this so that visitors to your site can contact you. However, if your e-mail address is ‘open and exposed’ on your website, it can easily fall into the hands of spammers.

So-called SpamBots scour the internet for websites that contain email addresses that you can click on. If you can click on an e-mail address to send a message to it, a so-called mailto: tag has been added to the link in the code of the web page . And just for this feature search SpamBots. If they have discovered your e-mail address, there is a good chance that you will receive unwanted e-mail messages from, for example, Viagra providers and other sexist related messages, we call this Spam.

To prevent SpamBots from discovering your email address in this way, you can choose not to put any contact details on your website at all, but I don’t think that is the best solution. Another solution is a complicated piece of ASCII / JavaScript code that makes your e-mail address visible and possibly clickable, but not interceptable by SpamBots. But.. there is an even better solution. The best solution and the most user-friendly solution to let visitors get in touch with you is to place a contact form . Visitors to your website can enter these and therefore your e-mail address is not visible. So no SPAM and more user-friendly.

No email software

What actually happens when visitors to your site click on the link of your email address? An e-mail program such as Outlook is opened. But what if a visitor does not use e-mail software installed on the computer and instead uses online mail such as Gmail, Hotmail or Live? Then starting up such mail software is disruptive and causes annoyance to your visitors. An e-mail address as a link is therefore not recommended. Use a contact form.

Obligated

Strictly speaking (very strictly speaking), it is mandatory to state an e-mail address (or as the law calls it: an electronic mail address) on your website / webshop. Visitors to your site should be able to contact you directly in at least two ways. Then you can use an e-mail address and, for example, your telephone number. If you still want to mention your e-mail address, you can choose (to make it not clickable) to encode it with a so-called ASCII or JavaScript code. You can do this via the AntiSpamWeb website. The WordPress plugin mentioned below does the exact same thing only fully automatically across the site and retroactively.

WordPress plugin

If you have a WordPress website or webshop, the WordPress plugin ‘ Email Address Encoder ‘ is recommended. This is a WordPress plugin to protect email addresses and mailto: links from SpamBots. The plugin does this by encoding the email addresses (based on the @) and mailto: links in decimal and hexadecimal values. Link or no link, this plugin encrypts your email address.

In short: do you only have an email address on your website that visitors can click on? Then know that this causes SPAM in your mailbox and is not user-friendly. Make sure you place a contact form where visitors can easily identify themselves. With a contact form you can send what information you want from visitors, so that you receive all relevant information.