“Should I publish an email address on my website?”
NO! Never, Never, Never, Ever publish an email address.
Spam email is a constant issue for anyone managing email.
Any action that reduces the chances of spam or scam email getting to your account is a good thing.
Spam Email
To address the question we need to understand what spam email represents. It is about the impact it can have on you and your business.
Spam mail in this context includes all the Unsolicited and Untrusted email that exists on a daily basis.
Types of spam email include those selling the latest sex, diet, or hair growth/removal treatments (these used to be called ‘snake-oil’). Along with the more dangerous malware, ransom-ware, and virus laden emails.
All of these are a risk to your email and your time at a minimum. Accidentally clicking a scam email can be extremely costly.
“..in 2021… …average total cost of recovery from a ransomware attack… ..increased to $2,340,000 per incident.”
https://australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au/average-ransomware-recovery-cost-in-apj-increases-from-us1-16-million-to-us2-34-million/
If those ‘big numbers’ are too big and you think you are too small or not worth targeting, you are wrong.
Scamming, phishing, emails are looking for your identity and your banking or credit card details. Even smaller values in hundreds or a few thousand dollars is their target along with the ability to get your identity and take out a large loan in your name.
Even for smaller businesses or personal accounts the risk exists. Imagine losing all your data on your computer. Imagine your identity being stolen. There are potential risks in every email you receive, even from senders that you recognise.
Spam accounts for 14.5 billion messages globally per day.
https://www.spamlaws.com/spam-stats.html
Spam email is a risk to you and your business. It consumes a mountain of resources in dealing with it.
Publish My Email Address it is Important
It is a fallacy to say “Its important that this email address is highly visible as this is how customers will contact us”. Use a contact form.
Customers that are using the website will use whatever means provided to contact the business. Provide them with a contact form and they will use that method.
Is there a method for the email address to be visible only to humans? No. Scammers use scripts that read the code of a webpage and not what a human viewer reads.
Using example [at] your-business [dot] domain is often suggested as an option for a human to read and mentally convert the [at] and [dot] but the email harvesting scripts included code to recognise these options and convert them to a usable email address.
Other methods include time-consuming java-script coding, or making jpg images, or other coding solutions.
Do not waste the time and effort doing that. A contact form removes the need completely.
Use a Contact Form
A contact form is quicker, easier, safer.
There are lots and lots of scripts, templates, and tools to create and manage Contact Forms.
WrenMaxwell provides WordPress website hosting and utilises WordPress Contact Form Plugins.
Your designer can add a simple Contact Us page in minutes and replace any email address with a simple ‘Click to Contact Us’ link to that new page and its contact form.
In terms of designer time and cost, it should be minimal and part of their standard process.
For analytics of your customer contact through your website a Contact Form provides a tracking process that does not exist if using just a published email address. This is a topic relating to CRM and how to analyse the success of your website.
Conclusion
“Should I publish an email address on my website?”
Never publish an email address. Always use a Contact Form plugin or script.
A Contact Form, along with additional website security and server-based security measures will reduce the amount of spam or scam emails that get to your inbox.
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