Harvest-Proof Email Link
Interim Web Page
Instructions
When a spam-harvest-proof email link is clicked on, a web page is displayed in the user's browser and the user's email program is launched. These instructions are for that interim web page.
NOTE: The ability to specify a custom interim web page URL has not yet been enabled. This instruction page is provided in case you want to have the page ready ahead of time. We expect to charge a fee for the ability to specify a custom interim web page URL.
When completed, the interim page will contain PHP code. Therefore, your server must parse the page for PHP. This may require the page to have the .php file name extension. If in doubt, ask your hosting company.
It is recommended the interim web page be an orphan page — a page not linked to from anywhere. The page may contain whatever you want it to contain. We suggest it conveys the kind of information found here.
Once you've created your interim page, modify it in two places (a third place is optional):
Modification 1 —
At the top of the source code, paste the following 20 lines of PHP code.
It is important that this PHP code be all the way at the top of the source code, above any other text or HTML tags. It must be at the very top; not even a space or blank line may precede this code.
Modification 2 —
The following 1 line of PHP code needs to be put into the HEAD area of your web page source code. That would be between the <head> and </head> tags.
Modification 3 (optional) —
Some people use only web mail for email; they have no email software installed on their computer or they use computers at Internet cafes or public libraries. For these people, the spam-harvest-proof email link won't work. (The link works when a mailto: link would work, otherwise not.)
To accommodate these people, the "To" address that would otherwise automatically pre-fill in their email software can be printed on this interim page for copying and pasting.
The code to print the email address is
Here is a suggested paragraph. Use or modify it as you wish.
The modifications have now been completed. You may put your web page on your server.
Testing your spam-harvest-proof email link interim web page
Testing is important.
There are two things to test:
- Loading the interim web page directly.
- Loading the interim web page when a spam-harvest-proof email link is clicked.
Loading the interim web page directly —
Type the URL of your web page into your browser. When the page loads, your browser should be redirected to your web site's home page. That's what should happened whenever someone tries to access your interim page without first clicking on a spam-harvest-proof email link.
If you would like to have the browser redirected to a URL other than your web site home page, or to remove the redirection altogether, click here to reveal instructions.
Loading the interim web page when a spam-harvest-proof email link is clicked —
For this test, we'll simulate an actual spam-harvest-proof email link click. When the simulation proves to work correctly, it is fairly certain a real click will work correctly, also.
Let's suppose the interim web page URL is http://example.com/interim.php
Append ?email=testing to the URL, which then becomes http://example.com/interim.php?email=testing
Type the URL of your interim web page with ?email=testing appended into your browser.
When you do that, you should be able to see your interim web page in your browser window and your email program should launch with the word "testing" in lieu of a real "To" address.
Failed tests —
If either of the above tests fail, the reason is likely to be one of the following:
-
The PHP code was not copied and pasted correctly, or edits broke the code.
-
The server isn't parsing the PHP code in the interim web page.
(You can test for PHP by putting these 3 lines
<?php echo("<h1>I work!</h1>"); ?>somewhere into the body content of your interim web page. If the "I work!" heading appears, the PHP code is being parsed. Otherwise, it probably is not.)