I’ve been hip deep in code for the past few weeks. I am in full web design mode now as I’m trying to finish up the mass overhaul of my jewelry website. It’s a big job, I’ve outlined what’s wrong with my old site and how I plan to fix it in this video and this video. I’ll be releasing a couple more makeover videos as the launch date gets closer.
One minor update I’m doing to my website is that I’m changing the way that I display my email on my websites. On my old site, I simply have the web address out there with a simple “mailto:” link so that when someone clicks on my email address, they can send me an email straight from my website.
While it was quick and convienient for my visitors, the downside was that I now regularly get anywhere from 50 to 200 pieces of spam email a day at this address. Why? Because email spammers use these really evil little automated programs called “harvesting bots” that do nothing but crawl through web pages, forums, and other public pages on the Internet and gather email addresses that appear on those pages.
So if you post your email address as janepotmaker@janepotmakerdesigns.com on your website, one of those harvesting bots can visit your site, scoop up your email address and boom! Suddenly you’re a target for spammers.
Fortunately, there are several ways to fight this:
1. Replace the “@” and the “.” symbols- a common way the harvesting bots find email addresses is that they look for the typical email address pattern on your web site (youremail@yourdomain.TLD). To avoid this, you can spell out your email address like this: janepotmaker [at] janepotmakerdesigns [dot] com. Plus, don’t make the email address clickable so that the email address doesn’t show up in the HTML code. The downside of this method is that it’s not very user friendly for your visitors as they have to manually replace the dot and the “@” symbols when they are emailing you.
2. Use a web form- another way people get around the spam bots is by putting a contact form on their websites instead of an email address. While very effective, I’ve always found it annoying when I ran across a website that uses them. In many cases your customers want an email address that they can keep and store in their address books. A web form doesn’t give them that.
3. Make your email address into an image- with the teenest bit of image editing skills, you can make your email address into an image…or you can create a screen capture of your email address like the image below:
This hides your email address from the evil spam bots completely…however your visitors have to manually type in your email address. If you don’t have an image editor like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, there are some free online image editors you can use to make that image. Check out my previous posts on Splashup, Picnik, and Photoshop Express.
4. Use an online email obfuscator- what these nifty online tools will do is convert your email address into special codes and symbols that look completely normal on a web page but can be undetectable to many of the spam bots. So in the HTML code of your web page, instead of your email address looking like this:
janepotmaker@janepotmakerdesigns.com
it will look something like this:
%6A%61%6E%65%70%6F%74%6D%61%6B%65%72%40%6A%61%6E
But it will appear on your website like this:
janepotmaker@janepotmakerdesigns.com
The only downside to this method is that some harvest bots are getting wise to this trick…so it won’t fool the more sophisticated ones.
5. Hide your email address in JavaScript- another way to fool those harvest bots is to combine email obfuscation with a bit of javascript programming. Basically, embedding your email address in javascript can hide your email address…especially if you use an obfuscation tool to convert your email address in to special code first. There’s a good tool for both email obfuscation and javascript at this address:
http://members.cox.net/timandbeth/spam/index.htm.
All you’ll need to do is to put your email address in the tool and paste the code that it gives you on your web page.
Now these fixes aren’t going to completely prevent you from getting any spam. Spam appears to be a hazard of the Internet and if there was a gold metal for getting around spam blockers, spammers would win it hands down. Plus, if you are active on the Internet in any way, like participating in forums, social networks, or even signing up for an ezine, you’ll probably get a certain amount from these channels. (Which is why it’s a good idea to get a separate email address to use just for these purposes)
But, if you use some of these methods of displaying your email on your website, at least your website won’t be contributing to the problem.
So now it’s your turn! What methods have you used to combat spam? Let me know by leaving a comment.
