E-mail Links - Are they now useless? - Graphic Design Forum and Web Design Forum

zumojuice · #1 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 10:38 AM

Many sites have the e-mail link, which when clicked, attempts to open up a new message in the e-mail client installed as default.

While this maybe seen as handy for those who have their e-mail going through such programs, what about shared computers or those with webmail accounts? Hell - I have my own computer and still only use webmail, since entourage spazed out and ditched all my emails, and even the back-up didn't work.. Webmail has the advantage of my e-mails anywhere too...

Does this mean sites that have such a link, particularly in flash (where the e-mail link does not display in the bottom bar) are cutting off contacts and putting off users? Take this shiny site StudioMakgill â€” Design and Branding . Beautiful work, but does the lack of easy e-mail link make it harder to get in touch? would simply making the e-mail link the actually address solve this simple? Is there another way that could launch my webmail? a plug-in for firefox as yet unrealised.....?

tommylogic · #2 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 10:43 AM

The e-mail link on a web page is by far the easiest way to get spammed.. I don't use it; in fact, I break them on purpose... but that said, I find it interesting how many people rely on webmail as their sole resort. I can't tell you how many people I know that got screwed on that deal.. lost everything.

I have 23 email accounts... and I have NEVER been let down by Outlook. If you're not using a POP3 client and downloading your mail to your local machine.. shame on you, you deserve to lose it all!!!

PR Design · #3 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:20 AM

I wrote an article on the same kind of thing here.

I do get annoyed though when there's just a mailto: link and no contact form.

LeadMagnet · #4 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:45 AM

Well i use gmail and email links open up in a new gmail tab for me, so no, i don't think they're redundant. I also know plenty of people who use either outlook or thunderbird as their email client.

What i've done in the past when making websites is use javascript to create the email link. Web crawlers, afaik, won't process javascript in order to find email links. It's too time-consuming for them.

So what you do it you create a little function in your <head> like this:

HTML Code:

<script>
  function writeaddress(name, domain){
    document.write(name+'@'+domain);
}
</script>

Then wherever you want your email address to appear, you write something like:

HTML Code:

<script type="text/javascript">document.write('<a href="mailto:');writeaddress('yourname','yourdomain.com');document.write('">email: ');writeaddress('yourname','yourdomain.com');document.write('</a>')</script>

tommylogic · #5 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:48 AM

I prefer A CGI script.. Perl.. but spiders are funny & wicked

LeadMagnet · #6 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tommylogic

I prefer A CGI script.. Perl.. but spiders are funny & wicked

What do you mean?
The whole point is that the email address is constructed client-side. Server-side is completely pointless.

tommylogic · #7 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LeadMagnet

What do you mean?
The whole point is that the email address is constructed client-side. Server-side is completely pointless.

Server side is the best way, IMO.. I prefer hosts with CGI scripting allowed

PR Design · #8 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 11:55 AM

I just write email addresses as their ASCII equivalents & # 97 ; = a, & # 98 ; = b etc (without spaces obviously)...

...or to refer you to another article of mine: Hide Email Addresses From Spiders With CSS :: PR Consulting - Web Standards Consultancy West Yorkshire // Usability, Accessibility, UX, Web Standards, Semantics, CSS & xHTML Consulting and Front-End Development

LeadMagnet · #9 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 12:15 PM

No, you're missing the point tommy. If a spider requests the page from your CGI script, they're going to be handed the email addresses on a plate. The work is done for them and there's no point in even using a script to construct the email address.
They download a page, scan it for email addresses and links and move on. With a javascript constructor, they'll scan the page but find nothing, with any server-side script, they'll scan the page they downloaded and find everything.

I wouldn't rely on the ASCII trick these days. That's a very old trick by now.

Another advantage of the javascript is that you can write it to be as obscure as you like to make it extra difficult for the bots. If you really wanted to make it secure, you could even pull in variables from things like image heights or something specified in the css so that only a fully loaded and rendered webpage (web crawlers won't do either) will result in the script outputting the real email address.

*edit* I should also point out that writing out tags like <a> using document.write is not recommended. It's not the DOM way to do things and your page won't validate (not as xhtml strict anyway).

tommylogic · #10 (**permalink**) 26-05-2008, 12:31 PM

Server Side Script.. not like PHP, but Perl app can throw them in a loop which their spider will never escape... a much better trick

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