Email Verification January 09, 2009

Most websites that allow you to submit a reply to articles, such as this blog, asks you to fill in usually three or four fields:

• Your Name
• Your Email
• Your Website
• Captcha An Anti-Bot Code

The information is then sent to a database and an in some cases the response is published right away. In others, you must wait for the approval from the site admin.

An example of waiting for the article to be written that requires approval before being published on their website is The Guardian's website. PEIinfo is another example that allows you to post anything without the approval of the admin staff, the only difference is with PEIinfo you must prove your email address is a actual working one before you can post.

My blog has been setup a bit differently. Instead of sending you a verification email, it only queries your domain to ensure it is an existing domain. By doing this, it cuts back on a lot of spam being posted and disallows those trying to take the easy way out by typing in random text as your email address. While it is not as good as the email verification, it is a bit more user friendly but not to the point where you can type in what ever you want as a comment and it will be posted.

Nor is it a new idea, just a different one.