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PHP Build a Simple PHP Application Wrapping Up The Project Sending The Contact Form Email

Posted by Phil Ellett
Phil Ellett
20,514 Points

Is it not bad practice to send an email using the user specified FROM address.

If you send a message (even to yourself) using a FROM address which is user specified then the message could be flagged as spam by the receiving server. AntiSPAM mechanisms such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework) can specify which servers are authorized to send mail for a particular domain. If your message is sent by your webserver then this server is NOT going to be on the authorized list and could be flagged as SPAM. Surely the FROM address should be something like webserver@serverdomain.com and the AddReplyTo method can then be used to set the ReplyTo address to the user submitted address so that it can be replied to.

Richard Phelps
Richard Phelps
2,960 Points

No, best practice is to use the user specified email address.

Why?... Well let's say the serverdomain.com domain is blacklisted. The AntiSPAM mechanisms will block emails from this domain. Where I work we recently had this exact problem where one of our servers became black listed and AntiSPAM was blocking form submissions because they were coming from domain names on the server. I would say it's best practice to always use the email address specified by the user.