Yesterday while I was doing my normal internet errands (checking my newsfeeds, latest posts from my favourite websites, stats, etc), I noticed that I hadn’t been contacted using my contact page ever from Blogtrepreneur readers. I thought this was a bit odd, as I was pretty sure at least one or two people would be wanting to talk to me!
Anyway, to test out the system I went to my contact page and left a comment on the InTouch form I’ve been using. I got this as it would save me from putting my email address on the internet. Anyway, today I checked my inbox to find that the comment wasn’t there. It was time to go on a bug hunt:
- The first place I went was the Blogtrepreneur CPanel provided by my host. There I logged into my WebMail using SquirrelMail and tried various passwords and finally managed to enter. To my amazement there were some 70-80 emails in there, all with “Mail Delivery Failed” in the subject line. I opened a few and realised that people actually had been trying to contact me!
- When I opened the email, it said that I had tried to send an email to yourname@yourdoman.com. I then knew that there was a problem somewhere in the line. Due to this, the emails sent to this non-existent email address bounced back as undeliverable and luckily they bounced back to my server from which they came. In each email even more fortunately was a copy of what had been said in the comment, by whom and their email addresses.
- I then logged into my Wordpress Admin section and went to Options >> InTouch. From here I scrolled down to finally realise that successful forms had been told to send to yourname@yourdoman.com which was the default address entered when the InTouch plugin installed. I’ve now changed and rectified the problem!
Due to this I have had a backlog of people contacting me since June 25th! I really am extremely sorry if I did not contact you back. People who contacted me wanted link exchanges, advice and even potential advertisers contacted me so I may have lost out. The moral of this story is to always double check everything in your system. Even if one tiny piece of the jigsaw is missing, the whole operation can go wrong.
I now have a list of 17 people to contact and reply to, so expect an email within the next few days following up from your question. Again please accept my dearest apologies and I hope I didn’t come across as rude when I didn’t return your email. Everyone please feel free to use the Contact Page as I am always open to suggestions, requests, advertising opportunities and much more. Also I need a lot more than 1 vote in the latest poll in the right sidebar, so get voting!
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Matt (mithrill) // Sep 8, 2006 at 4:36 am
Adnan, I too feel like I should apologize. I helped you set up this set and should have tested the contact form or at least noticed that the default email was typed in. For some reason, I think I remember seeing that yourname@yourdoman.com was typed in. I thought I had fixed it, but that must have been on Golf Chum (double check that too). Again, I’m sorry because I’m partially responsible.
2 Jamsi // Sep 8, 2006 at 1:16 pm
hehe .. lesson learnt eh?
3 adnan // Sep 8, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Matt, please don’t worry about it. As the website owner I should have checked everything anyway. I did lumber a lot of the responsibility on you anyway and Im so glad that you did what you did, I really love this blog and am so glad I managed to find you, and am proud at the relationship we built.
I’ll definitely check GolfChum.
Anyway, how are you? We havn’t spoken in quite some time. How’s the wedding planning coming along. And your job? I’ll probably be sending you an email anyway responding to that hefty “Deep Thoughts” email you sent which I never replied to! Sorry bout that.
Jamsi, yeah I have sorta learnt my lesson, but I guess there’s always going to be stuff that’s out of my control! You’re one of the people Im apologizing to as you did send me 2 emails over the few months, which I’ll be responding to. By the way, great interview with TLA. It basically answered all the questions I was after! You must’ve been listening to what I was saying in the comments of another article! Thanks for that!
4 Dave Starr // Sep 9, 2006 at 1:36 am
An excellent post here:
http://www.payperclickiq.com/2006/09/starting_out_slowly.html
regarding testing and then testing yet again. It’s always an irritation when it happens, but there are only two kinds of web/blog meisters … those who have made mistakes and those who will … be of good cheer, it’s working now.
5 Ray Dotson // Sep 9, 2006 at 11:33 am
I’ve been intending on putting up a contact page when I have the time and I’ll most likely use this same plugin. Thanks for letting us know about a potential problem to avoid!
6 adnan // Sep 10, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Thanks for that link Dave. Yeah I suppose everyone makes mistakes. Fortunately for that guy, it didn’t cost him too much. Yeah at least it is working now, so email away!
No problem Ray, its a whole lot safer having the contact page form plugin as well, because you don’t have to plaster your email address all over the net! I did that at first, take a look at Workboxer’s post on me!
7 Ray Dotson // Sep 11, 2006 at 11:07 am
That’s pretty good. Feel free to make up a post about any of my mistakes! It’s good press (along the lines of at least they’re talking about you).
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