I've probably held an internal debate well beyond what I should on this issue, but I'm stuck on the most welcoming way to handle things. I'm trying to effectively open up communication with my community. Part of that is restoring the availability of email contact. I'm stuck on what I should use for the email. Do I go with something generic yet that shows authority like [email protected] or [email protected]? Or, would it be better to use either [email protected] or even [email protected]. I'm leaning towards the forum username email, as I'm thinking about providing accounts to my staff members. I wanted to see some other angles and see what you folks thought is the best approach?
I usually set up an [email protected] to catch most of the spam mail. For contact I'll make a box for [email protected] and even been known to do [email protected]. Of course you can always make emails for moderators and admins with [email protected].
I always use [email protected] as the primary email address and use [email protected] as an easier to remember address to give out to people. I've got catch-alls setup so really they can send it to any address at the domain and I'll get it.
Do you have a tutorial on how to set one of those up? I've always done [email protected] but I use my gmail account now and have everything forwarded to that one now.
When using cPanel a catch all is setup by choosing "Default Address" under email options from the cPanel homepage. I just forward mine to my Gmail address and confirm send from addresses as needed. Other control panels are a little different with one or two of them requiring you to setup an account named *@domain.com. If you don't use see cPanel let me know the name of your CP and I'll take a look around.
I used to use [email protected] but for Design247 all my contact emails are [email protected], I do have admin@ but i made that by mistake when creating the admin account under gmail..But i never check it so who ever does send mail to there will never get a reply.
My experience is that most people with a legitimate reason to contact the owner of a website use either admin@ or info@ when there is no other apparent means to make contact. In most cases of contact, the person isn't interested in contacting me about a website issue, but about a business issue. I do have a link to the person responsible for the web design and management in the footer, who also happens to be me. But my publicly known address has always been admin@. Spam has never been a big problem because I utilize spam prevention measures available both on the server side and through my email program. On my forum, a person (or bot) must be registered or jump through hoops to contact me. Business entities though, like those interested in advertising, are usually savvy enough to know there are only a couple standard addresses to the owner or administrator. I use one of them and point a couple others to that address. Jim
