Email mailto link (multiple windows) versus contact form

Forum Moderators: phranque

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Email mailto link (multiple windows) versus contact form

Lassar

5:07 pm on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

I have been doing some research on clicking on email mailto links can open up multiple windows.

It looks like the majority of these cases include the IE browser, and the windows operating system not properly setup to handle the email mailto protocol.

How big of a problem is this?

Would it be much better to use a contact form instead of email mailto links?

I am concerned about contact form spam.

piatkow

6:30 pm on Aug 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

I am concerned about contact form spam.

Have spammers stopped harvesting mailto links?

phranque

10:41 pm on Aug 18, 2011 (gmt 0)

the primary problem with using a mailto: link is that it launches the default email client.
this will be a poor user experience for some who uses web mail and has never configured or used their default email client.
it is even less appropriate if the visitor is using a public computer.

ProblemSolver

3:33 pm on Aug 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

Hi Lassar,

It would be better to use a contact form.

Everybody can use it even if they are not using their own pc.

A contact form tells people that you care more about the communication with your visitors compared to one link to click.

And i think a contact form is more seo friendly.

Hope you the best.

ProblemSolver

Hoople

3:42 pm on Aug 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

+1 to phranque's comment.

If you do go the form route for this try to find one that asks the user a question rather than a captcha secured one. 'What is 4 +1?' or similar.

People with vision challenges will not be able to read most captchas. It has been reported that some spam bots can read the simpler captchas.