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June 30, 2010 at 3:05 am #968846Up::0
I would like to include some sort of Captcha code (I think this is what it is called) on my newsletter sign up page to avoid spam etc.
How ?
July 1, 2010 at 3:42 am #1035491Up::0Hi,
It is dependent on what you are using to create your site, and where you are hosting. If you are using a CMS such as Joomla, Drupal, WordPress etc, there are plugins that you can install (or get installed). If you have written your own site, you can either use a commercial captcha service (eg captcha.net or recaptcha.net), or install a (open source) captcha app on your site.
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha for more info.
Kev
July 1, 2010 at 4:28 am #1035492Up::0I presume you are wanting to add “captcha” in an attempt to prevent “bots” from registering.
Captchas are things I dislike with passion – they are often poorly designed and badly implemented. They are often roadblocks that discourage real sign-ups.
One alternative I have read about is to simply put another field in the form with text that reads “do not enter anything in this field”. Since bots don’t read the instructions and are generally programmed to fill all fields they will do so. If you can hide this field via your css even better. Then code your form processor to send any submissions with this field filled into file 13.
July 1, 2010 at 6:03 am #1035493Up::0Hi – Reading all the comments with regard to this captcha coding, this is very much insightful. Thanks!
July 1, 2010 at 7:55 am #1035494Up::0I went down a different route on a couple of my websites.
I just put in a filter that any submission that had a url in it was marked as junk. To test I had it emailed to myself and sent to a folder. I had 100’s of these emails and a perfect record for capturing spam since all of this spam had a url in it (I’d check every so often).Really depends on what sort of form you have but it’s unlikely that a newsletter signup is going to ever have a valid reason to contain a url.
Plan b is to have a “better” newsletter script that requires the people signing up to verify their email address. Come to think of it, isn’t this kind of essential? since I don’t really want someone putting my email address into your newsletter without my knowledge? It also ensures the person successfully signs up which is to their benefit.. i.e. tell them “you will recieve a confirmation email..” then if they dont’ they know they didn’t do something right. If they dont’ verify their email address you never ever see their submission and then don’t get spammed..
Just some thoughts (and bad spelling no doubt)
July 5, 2010 at 4:05 am #1035495Up::0Hamish is correct – you are required to perform double-opt-in for marketing newsletters. Otherwise anyone could enter any email address.
The penalties for sending commercial electronic messages without permission to market are quite severe.
So the answer would seem to be to simply require confirmation and ignore any addresses that aren’t confirmed. This strategy has served me well in the past. I have email lists with hundreds of unconfirmed accounts – a massive proportion of them look like spam-related email addresses.
July 9, 2010 at 4:56 am #1035496Up::0Belated thanks for responses. Appreciate. Will review the feedback and work out how to proceed …
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