The popularity of Ramsey Town Commissioners' website – www.ramsey.gov.im – since it went live early in 2009 has prompted an upgrade to the site's contact form facility.
Town Clerk Peter Whiteway said: ‘With more and more users choosing to contact the Commission through our online contact form, we have had to install a validation process – reCAPTCHA - to combat increased levels of spam and protect the Commission's email system.
‘CAPTCHA is a programme that recognises if its user is human or a computer. reCAPTCHA protects our inbox by requiring the user to decipher a section of distorted text before the system will allow an email to be sent to us. The validation systems stops spammers accessing email addresses because current computer programme technology cannot "read" distorted text. For the user the process takes only a matter of seconds and it ensures we are able to devote more time to responding to enquiries than dealing with spam.'
Mr Whiteway added that in since its launch in February 2009 the
website has attracted 3,839 individual visitors, generating 25,160 visits and viewings of 67,700 pages. 14.94 per cent of visitors were new, and direct traffic was 73.40 per cent.
Chairman of Ramsey Town Commissioners Sylvia Beattie said: ‘The website has exceeded expectations as a means of not only promoting the work and services of the Commission but also raising awareness of our town to a wider audience. We always welcome input as the website is here to serve the community who, we hope, will help drive the content and contribute to the site's continuing development.'