Setting up your own double opt-in system

How does the confirmation work?

[Rischen]

Hi,

This is a question for people who have set up their own double opt-in lists with date/time & IP stamps.

Okay, it's the double part that I'm a bit confused about. Using say, formail I can pick up the IP and the date/time will appear in the headers once the opt-in form comes to Outlook Express but how do you get that information from the confirmation? I'm sort of new to this and I find with most double opt-in newsletters you opt-in off the form and then you get an email with a confirmation link. What is that confirmation link? How do I make it do what it's supposed to do, i.e. double opt the person in : )

I'd appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Rischen

ps - Burner :) I've returned from the dark side. Your comments were instrumental. Thanks.

[Dijkgraaf]

The confirmation link is basically a unique URL for that registration, e.g. it will have?User=### in it where ### is the unique identifier in your database for that user.
If they follow the link the page they visit will update their record to indicate that they have opted in.
That is a very simplified version.

To make it more secure and to prevent abuse you will want to include some sort of hashing code so that other people can't guess what the entire URL would be and manually create the URL to subscribe others.

[Rischen]

Thanks D,

Appreciate it.

Rischen