Stopping spammers harvesting your published email address?

TheBigCheese · 5 Jun 2006 at 07:13

Hi guys

I've got an email address published on my website and received my first piece of spam yesterday (eek!), obviously the address has been harvested.

How can I go about stopping this happening?

I have read of ways of putting simple html inbetween the letters in the address such as bolding and unbolding so it doesn't look like an address to a bot but a person doesn't notice.

I've also read about forms which I don't really want to use and automated email encoders.

What would everyone recommend?

(P.S. My html knowledge is extremely limited so keep it simple please!)

Thanks.

ArmoVanBuuren · 5 Jun 2006 at 09:18

Use an image for the @ and dont have mailto links. If you must have a contact form put a php form that sends the values to a database or a variable which is your email address which isnt displayed.

stoofa · 5 Jun 2006 at 15:57

Use this groovy utility:

http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform

Put in the details and it prints the HTML code for you at the bottom which you only need to copy & paste into the rest of your code.
I use it on my site and I receive very little Spam on my "Contact Me" address and it appears on every page.

Beansprout · 5 Jun 2006 at 16:12

Noooooo! People who don't use javascript, people who have it turned off, code validation, code size, search engines and so on. It just doesn't make any sense at all

Use a web-based contact form, put your e-mail address as an image, or install SpamAssassin or a similar spam filter at your mailbox.

In all honesty the spammers will find you eventually if only through brute force.

Another strategy is to use one address publicly on your site & to sign up to subscriptions, and another for private stuff.

rich_g85 · 5 Jun 2006 at 16:34

stoofa said:
Use this groovy utility:

http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform

Put in the details and it prints the HTML code for you at the bottom which you only need to copy & paste into the rest of your code.
I use it on my site and I receive very little Spam on my "Contact Me" address and it appears on every page.

Just tried that out - very cool (but still JavaScript!)

robmiller · 5 Jun 2006 at 21:05

Don't care about who gets your address but instead install a spam filter locally. I get a ton of spam but never see any of it 'cause Google and Thunderbird detect it so well.

Beansprout · 5 Jun 2006 at 21:35

Aye, gMail rocks at spam...it's only ever let two e-mails through.

Compare to Hotmail, which doesn't seem to learn at all...

TheBigCheese · 6 Jun 2006 at 07:23

Thanks for the links guys!

I've had a stab at using unicode:
Unicode

I've tested it and it seems to be doing the trick, my actual email address isn't shown anywhere on the webpage, any instances of it have been replaced with "click here to contact us" and the 'mailto' instruction now has a code behind it instead of an address.

Hopefully it'll work, what do you think?