email reply address

[DJ INDIE]

Morning all,

I currently have built my site via a site builder, which allows me to have an email address as [email protected].

People can write to this, however, I can only automatically redirect their emails to one of my personal addresses, which is where I pick them up. I dont seem to own the address (if that makes sense?:) )

Is there anyway I can reply using this address (the [email protected] one) ?

Ive heard in the past about using SMTP (or something??!)

The main reason is it doesnt look too great replying with an aol address instead of my site address.


any help greatly appreciated.

[scoopd]

to be honest if you put any email address on your site you'll be spammed within an inch of your life

[DJWilson]

make that email an msn passport so you can use hotmail via that address to send/recieve mail

[Marc J]

You're correct when you say you need SMTP, or you could do it if you have a webmail interface on your hosting.

Unfortunately if your current host only offers a forwarding facility for addresses on your domain then you can't send from it. You could always just put the domain address in the "from" and "reply-to" fields in your email client (Outlook / Outlook Express / Mail etc.) setup and send through another address (gmail or your ISP for example), but this would make your mail more likely to be rejected as spam as it wouldn't actually be coming from there.

[discomobiledj]

You can pay £14.00 for a SMTP server account allowing you to have [email protected] as an actual email address.

[Jiggles]

Get a proper host like servage for example. That allow you to have unlimated email accounts.

[Shaun]

Servage proper? I've heard mixed reviews about servage. Get a host you can 100% rely on = Marc J.

[Jiggles]

I have 100% faith in them. The only down time I have had was a month after I signed up there was a major DOS attack. That was the only hic up over 2 years. There Technical support is brilliant as well most questions answered in 15 mins and the questions can be on anything. What you get for your £4.50 a month is crazy but brilliant.

[Marc J]

Servage proper? I've heard mixed reviews about servage. Get a host you can 100% rely on = Marc J.

Cheque's in the post :D


I have 100% faith in them. The only down time I have had was a month after I dirt signed up thee was a major DOS attack. That was the only hic up over 2 years. There Technical support is brilliant as well most questions answered in 15 mins and the questions can be on anything. What you get for your £4.50 a month is crazy but brilliant.

Glad to hear you have only had that one problem and are happy with them. A lot of the time you only find out how poor a host can be when things go wrong, though. Just Google for "servage hacked (http://www.google.co.uk/search?complete=1&hl=en&q=servage+hacked&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=)" for example :eek:

My advice - keep a close eye on your webspace ;)

[Jiggles]

For the number or sites I'm running and the number of My SQL databases I'm running Servage is the cheapest :D

[Cheesey 1975]

Im all confused !!!!

[samuelchristian]

to be honest if you put any email address on your site you'll be spammed within an inch of your life

One way of helping to reduce the amount of span you receive by putting your email address on your site is by creating an image such as a jpg or a gif with your email address on it as opposed to just having it as html text. This stops spiders harvesting your address :) I have not done that on my site yet but will do soon.

The best way though is by adding a contact form where your address is not visable at all. See the one on my site here.

http://www.samuelchristian.co.uk/enquiries.html

You can also add Captcha to your form which requires the entry of some text from an image box to totally stop any form of bot getting your address but I personally think this is a bit overkill and may frustrate potential clients.

[Marc J]

The best way though is by adding a contact form where your address is not visable at all. See the one on my site here.

http://www.samuelchristian.co.uk/enquiries.html


That's not strictly speaking correct. Removing your address from the visible form code (e.g. using a PHP script instead) will stop some spam but you will still get spam received through filling in the form itself - this is done by bots (mostly) and can be high volume. To reduce this the form processor script can do checks on the submission before blindly allowing it through. It's this, not the removal of the address from the form, that will greatly reduce the spam you receive.


You can also add Captcha to your form which requires the entry of some text from an image box to totally stop any form of bot getting your address but I personally think this is a bit overkill and may frustrate potential clients.

People half expect a CAPTCHA now, and things like http://recaptcha.net (which is free) make it very easy to include on a form with just a little piece of code (and reCAPTCHA includes an audio version for the visually impaired). There's also http://www.justhumans.com which, again, is very easy to include and takes a slightly different approach.