Clients exist because they do not know all the ins-and-outs of having a web presence and do not have the personal resources to learn it all.

But too many developers take that advantage and deliver only the minimum required to meet the client’s explicit requests.

Here are three basic services every web or network developer should deliver at little or no extra cost — because they are free and take modest amounts of time to deploy. In-house tech support should have these things done already as a matter of common sense.

1. Configure OpenDNS as the DNS servers for the client’s computer network. This can be done simply by adjusting the DNS server addresses in the primary router to the outside world. It provides an extraordinary degree of free protection against known malicious and criminal web sites. The client should also be given the opportunity to spend the few bucks it costs to get a full account that would allow you to shut down access from company computers on a fine-grained basis or category basis (no porn or gambling sites, for example).

2. Sign up for and deploy Project Honey Pot spam catchers. The mere presence of the Honey Pot logo serves as a stop sign to the worst spam harvesters.

3. Implement email obfuscation on the company’s web sites. Recaptcha Mail Captcha is very good, but may introduce a bit too much complexity for the company’s web site audience. If so, then deploy one of the many free obfuscation scripts that displays the email address properly but delivers it distorted to spiders and robots.

All three of these techniques can be completed in under an hour. There is just no good reason why they are not part of every commercial or government web site.