Preventing Spamers from finding email addresses?

[Albatross]

Hello again.

A few months back I saw an HTML code that literally prevents spammers from using a search program (I think it was referred to as a mole--please correct me if I am wrong, which I am pretty sure I am) to hunt down valid email addresses so they can be spammed. I am not very fond of leaving the email addresses on my site inactive (ie: non-linkable) and I also do not like the idea of putting NOSPAM in the link, or even breaking the link to prevent the spammers from sending their wares.

I am pretty sure the code is HTML formatted, but I have been unable to find the source that published it (It was a local newspaper that published it--and they are reluctant to forward the information to me for whatever reason--hence my reason for asking here).

Could someone please fill me in on what this code is and how to properly implement it?


Thankx in advance.

[brendandonhue]

http://www.codehouse.com/online_tools/webmaster/email_obfuscator/

[Albatross]

Originally posted by brendandonhue
http://www.codehouse.com/online_tools/webmaster/email_obfuscator/ Ah, thank you very much. :)

Just one more quick question though. Is there a way to do this manually? (I love learning these things myself, rather than relying on a program or external source **like the link above** to do it for me.)

[brendandonhue]

Actually the method above isn't the best way.
In your mailto: links, replace the @ with &amp#64 and it will show up normal.

[jeffmott]

The first thing to note is the the obfuscator uses JavaScript. JavaScript allows several ways to represent a character, such as its hexadecimal or octal number in the ASCII character set, or its hexadecimal number in the unicode encoding. For instancealert("A"); // literal
alert("\x41"); // ASCII hexadecimal
alert("\101"); // octal
alert("\u0041"); // unicode hexadecimalSince bots don't take the time to parse any JavaScript (that I'm aware of) they see only the character for the escape sequence instead of the literal address.

The downside is that people who don't have JavaScript enabled (either due to disabilities or personal choice) will get a dead link.

[Albatross]

Originally posted by brendandonhue
Actually the method above isn't the best way.
In your mailto: links, replace the @ with &amp#64 and it will show up normal. And (*Warning: Stupid Question ahead*) this should have the same desired effect, right?

[jeffmott]

replace the @ with &#64 and it will show up normalthis should have the same desired effect, right?Probably. I would think there is a better chance of bots interpreting character entities than JavaScript, but the JavaScript will cause that part of your page to be inaccessable to a little more than 1 for every 10 people (approximately).

[PeOfEo]

I have seen the method used where you say mailto:somename(at)somedomain.com and then they say just type in the new email. Thats the most accurate method I suppose but its also a pain to your users (heaven forbid they have to change something) But a lot of the time they just wont see it or something like that.

[gizmo]

Have a look at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/spam/ there are several approaches covered.
:)

[PeOfEo]

neato!