Stopping the Harvesting of Email Addresses

[CJB]

This must be an issue from time immemorial - well as far back as the
original web pages of the last century.

But what are the best ways to stop email addresses being harvested -
and therefore sold for spamming - from: 1/ the text of a web page, and
2/ the source HTML.

This was 'solved' in a rather inelegant fashion as per this page:

http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/geoff.rodliffe - then click on 'Author'

That is with the use of " AT " in place of the usual "@"

But this is a fudge.

I found one web site with another idea at:

http://www.redalkemi.com/contactus.php

Here they have replaced the page text with a small graphic displaying
the email address. The link behind this is to the actual email
address. But this would not stop the harvesting of the addresses from
the HTML source.

So does anyone have any other solutions please?

CJB.

 

[Ronx]

Best method: Don't display the email address in the page - use a contact form in the site, with server side anti-spam measures (Captcha, recaptcha or other methods) and the sendto address added by the server side script - reqiores asp, asp.NET, PHP etc.

Alternative: Use javascript to write the email address to the page:

<script type="text/javascript">
var user = "someuser";
var domain = "example";
document.write("<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:" + user + chr(64) + domain + ".com" + "</p>")
</script>

Most webots have javascript disabled, so they will see nothing - caveat: users with javascript disabled will also not see an email address.

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details of why and where to go see
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx


CJB explained on 06/06/2010 :

This must be an issue from time immemorial -
well as far back as the original web pages of
the last century.

But what are the best ways to stop email
addresses being harvested - and therefore sold
for spamming - from: 1/ the text of a web page,
and 2/ the source HTML.

This was 'solved' in a rather inelegant fashion
as per this page:

http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/geoff.rodliffe -
then click on 'Author'

That is with the use of " AT " in place of the
usual "@"

But this is a fudge.

I found one web site with another idea at:

Here they have replaced the page text with a
small graphic displaying the email address. The
link behind this is to the actual email
address. But this would not stop the harvesting
of the addresses from the HTML source.

So does anyone have any other solutions please?

CJB.

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details
of why and where to go see
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx

 

[Kathleen Anderson]

Chris Pirillo recommended Email scrambler in his latest newsletter:
http://chris.pirillo.com/scramble-your-email-address-to-avoid-spam/

http://www.pagetutor.com/scrambler/index.html

--

~ Kathleen Anderson
Microsoft MVP - Expression Web
Spider Web Woman Designs
Expression Web Resources: http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/xweb/
Expression Web Wiki: http://expression-web-wiki.com/
FrontPage Resources: http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/resources/
Please reply to the newsgroup for the benefit of others

 

[CJB]

Best method:  Don't display the email address in the page - use a contact form in the site, with server side anti-spam measures (Captcha, recaptcha or other methods) and the sendto address added by the server side script - reqiores asp, asp.NET, PHP etc.

Alternative: Use javascript to write the email address to the page:

<script type="text/javascript">
var user = "someuser";
var domain = "example";
document.write("<p>Email: <a href=\"mailto:" + user + chr(64) + domain + ".com" + "</p>")
</script>

Most webots have javascript disabled, so they will see nothing - caveat: users with javascript disabled will also not see an email address.

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details of why and where to go seehttp://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx

CJB explained on 06/06/2010 :






--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details
of why and where to go seehttp://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Excellent - now is there a way of detecting whether a user has
Javascript enabled (hmm - but I'd also need to detect the browser
being used I guess!!). Then if so I could code something like:

If Javascript enabled then show this, otherwise then show that - kind
of thing.

Chris B.

 

[CJB]

Chris Pirillo recommended Email scrambler in his latest newsletter:http://chris.pirillo.com/scramble-your-email-address-to-avoid-spam/

http://www.pagetutor.com/scrambler/index.html

--

~ Kathleen Anderson
Microsoft MVP - Expression Web
Spider Web Woman Designs
Expression Web Resources:http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/xweb/
Expression Web Wiki:http://expression-web-wiki.com/
FrontPage Resources:http://www.spiderwebwoman.com/resources/
Please reply to the newsgroup for the benefit of others












- Show quoted text -

Hmm - scrambled email addresses. I'll research those. Thank you.

Chris B.

 

[Ronx]

Detect the browser being used? Why? You can disable javascript in any browser - and some people do.

Use something like:
<script type="text/javascript">
//script goes here
</script>
<noscript>Something for Javascript disabled browsers</noscript>

The <noscript> content only renders if Javascript is not available
--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details of why and where to go see
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx


It happens that CJB formulated :

Excellent - now is there a way of detecting
whether a user has Javascript enabled (hmm -
but I'd also need to detect the browser being
used I guess!!). Then if so I could code
something like:

If Javascript enabled then show this, otherwise
then show that - kind of thing.

Chris B.

--
Ron Symonds - Microsoft MVP (Expression Web)
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/wf-menu.aspx
Microsoft is closing this newsgroup - for details
of why and where to go see
http://www.rxs-enterprises.org/fp/newsgroup-closure.aspx

 

[Stephen Wolstenholme]

So does anyone have any other solutions please?

I use two valid email addresses with all my web addresses redirected
to both. Both the email hosts and my email client have excellent junk
filtering. The end result is that my valid messages arrive in pairs.
Anything else is junk!

Steve

 

[Helpful person]

I use Javascript to display the email address and just a picture (no
link from the picture) if Javascript is disabled. It's not perfect
but is good enough for me, an amateur web writer.

www.richardfisher.com