The Long-Awaited Mail Form Filter

RJM62

RJM62

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jun 15, 2007
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Upstate New York
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Geek on the Hill
Well, long-awaited by my old lady and my family, anyway, because I've been working on it (and talking about it) for months.

www.spamfilteredforms.com

This is basically just a bunch of php-powered spam filters on a mail form. They use behavioral analysis and a bit of content analysis to try to filter out robots. I may also add RBL lookup in the future; I'm not sure whether whatever improvements in accuracy of detection will be worth the extra overhead.

The immediate idea is that anyone who wants can simply create a form and link it from wherever they choose. The site is ad-supported and free. Future plans include paid ad-free versions, as well as licensing sites to embed a script or an iframe on their own sites, while doing the spam-handling on my server.

This is based on a similar site for text messaging I wrote about a year ago, which works very well despite very sloppy code and ponderous databases. (I'm going to re-write that one soon.) Major difference, however, include the following:


  • There is only one database, and it holds only the minimum required user information. The mail itself is never saved on the server.
  • The code has been cleaned up, tightened, and is more secure.
  • Some redundant filters have been eliminated, while a few others have been added.

Any comments appreciated.

-Rich
 
Sorry. I made a mistake in an ereg that caused legit email addresses to be rejected during signup. It's fixed now.

-Rich
 
Okay, this service is up and (apparently) running smoothly, and a trickle of people have registered. It's been indexed by Google, so I hope registration picks up soon. I think it's a useful service.

The nature of what the site does means it'll never really be "finished," as the spam filtering scripts will always need tweaking. But it's pretty close to its basic finished form, in my estimate.

I plan to add a few user-configurable options to the free service (for example, being able to add a tagline or phone number), and to offer a wider array of options for the eventual paid version. Also, I plan to offer a service very much like the free one, but minus the ads.

My questions:

1. What options do the folks here think would make the service more attractive?

2. Comments of a more general nature are welcome (appearance, typos, etc.). I already know the ads are ugly; I'm debating different ways to address that while still monetizing the site and maintaining the free service.

Thanks,

Rich
 
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