As a graphic artist, I understand the reasoning behind right-click blockers, but as a customer/visitor who has often been frustrated by these when trying to navigate a site, I'd like to share a few reasons NOT to use them.
1. They keep customers from opening up parts of your page in other tabs--which is really useful when you are deciding what items you want to buy. Blocking this feature also forces people to leave your site to visit links you have, rather than just opening these in another tab or browser window.
2. If you advertise on traffic exchanges, the blockers keeps exchange surfers from breaking out of the traffic exchange frames so they can bookmark your site. A site on an exchange I was recently surfing lost me as customer for this reason.
3. If you have an "E-mail Me" link that does not include the actual text of your e-mail, than people with web based e-mail accounts like hotmail or gmail or yahoo can not e-mail you because they can not right-click to copy your e-mail address. An easy fix is to type out your e-mail: Put janedoe@email.com in stead of "e-mail me" so that customers can copy/paste it.
4. If your right-click blocker has a pop-up with a message like "Don't steal my images!" than you offend customers who were merely using right-click for the legitimate reasons listed above and have no intention of stealing your images.
5. Right click only protects your images from people who don't know how get them another way. Anyone can use print screen and a simple graphics program to crop them out of the image, and there are several other ways to get around this. So it's not even an effective protection for your images!
So, my advice? Put a copyright statement on your page, and leave the right-click blocker off. But if you feel like you have to have one, than at least spell out your e-mail so customers can contact you, have a "bookmark this site" link on your page if you use traffic exchanges to advertise, and make sure your pop-up messages are polite.
Gale Langley is part time work at home mom who creates art for t-shirts, greeting cards, and other gift items. You can find out more about her and her artwork on her blog at http://scribbleprints.blogspot.com
Olivia Vidal
© 2009
http://sochicbagboutique.com
1. They keep customers from opening up parts of your page in other tabs--which is really useful when you are deciding what items you want to buy. Blocking this feature also forces people to leave your site to visit links you have, rather than just opening these in another tab or browser window.
2. If you advertise on traffic exchanges, the blockers keeps exchange surfers from breaking out of the traffic exchange frames so they can bookmark your site. A site on an exchange I was recently surfing lost me as customer for this reason.
3. If you have an "E-mail Me" link that does not include the actual text of your e-mail, than people with web based e-mail accounts like hotmail or gmail or yahoo can not e-mail you because they can not right-click to copy your e-mail address. An easy fix is to type out your e-mail: Put janedoe@email.com in stead of "e-mail me" so that customers can copy/paste it.
4. If your right-click blocker has a pop-up with a message like "Don't steal my images!" than you offend customers who were merely using right-click for the legitimate reasons listed above and have no intention of stealing your images.
5. Right click only protects your images from people who don't know how get them another way. Anyone can use print screen and a simple graphics program to crop them out of the image, and there are several other ways to get around this. So it's not even an effective protection for your images!
So, my advice? Put a copyright statement on your page, and leave the right-click blocker off. But if you feel like you have to have one, than at least spell out your e-mail so customers can contact you, have a "bookmark this site" link on your page if you use traffic exchanges to advertise, and make sure your pop-up messages are polite.
Gale Langley is part time work at home mom who creates art for t-shirts, greeting cards, and other gift items. You can find out more about her and her artwork on her blog at http://scribbleprints.blogspot.com
Olivia Vidal
© 2009
http://sochicbagboutique.com
2 comments:
Nice article! This is Tee following
from the MBC! Swing by my blog
and follow and comment please!
You can find me here:
http://thegrabbag-tanya.blogspot.com/
I totally agree, it's really annoying when you can't right click. I feel like in this day and age with being able to take screen shots, the images aren't really safe anyway.
Following you from the MBC Friends group...
http://thanksmailcarrier.blogspot.com
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