Simon Stafferton

The Speed of Spam

Simon — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 10:09:47 +0000

So this site is not that new, but only recently have I started putting a bit more energy into it, adding content and making it work better, faster etc. So this morning, I added a new contact form to the Contact Me page, this form had never existed before. It took literally 7 minutes from saving the page with the form for me to receive the first spam submission. Seven minutes! The site doesn’t even get much traffic yet, so I found this a bit shocking. In the time it’s taken me to write this, I have got a 2nd spam entry!

Ok, I admit I didn’t have the ReCaptcha or a honeypot set up, but the speed of that is amazing. Clearly, the site is on a huge list and some people have the software set up to send this kind of stuff out at hyper-speed en masse.

But it made me think, I need a better solution than the typical ‘I am not a robot’ type checks to filter out this junk, while still allowing genuine contact enquires through.

I have found a great solution that I will test out, without adding any other kind of anti-spam checks to the form… and report back in a day to see how many got through!

Google Analytics Channel Groupings

Simon — Fri, 13 Nov 2020 14:05:17 +0000

If you are looking into customising or editing the default channel groupings in Google Analytics you are now in the right place. I have done this dozens of times, and have pulled together a number of useful resources to help, and added my own understanding too.

This guide for Annie at Annielytics is a great place to start:

The Definitive Guide to Channels in Google Analytics

And in the beginning there was…

Simon — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 20:45:52 +0000

I write. I write a lot. But as so many of us do, the bulk of it is in emails. Emails to clients mainly for me, but it could emails to suppliers, colleagues, customers, staff, partners etc. Many of these emails are quite brief and to the point (as email should be), but from time to time you need details. I can end up writing a pretty involved email that has a wealth of useful information in it, that has huge value to my clients, but nobody else. So, I decided I really need to start sharing a little bit of wisdom now and then, if thats what it could be called!

Nuggets. Techniques. Hints and tips. Insider info. Test results. the list goes on! i plan to start trawling back through emails and pulling out a few gems, and creating a reasonable sized blog post on each one, and in future plan to start doing this as standard practice each and every week.

Nothing more for this post, this is just the beginning…