CritterNYC - 7:49 pm on Dec 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

Don't use images. That immediately excludes everyone with screen readers.

The hiveware encoder doesn't have a fallback for folks with JavaScript disabled.

I have a custom routine I use that encodes the email address down. So, <a href="mailto:email@example.com">email@example.com</a> becomes:

<script language="Javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write('<a href="mai');
document.write('lto');
document.write(':&#101;&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;');
document.write('@');
document.write('&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;">');
document.write('&#101;&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108;');
document.write('@');
document.write('&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;<\/a>');
// -->
</script><noscript>&#101;&#109;&#97;&#105;&#108; at
&#101;&#120;&#97;&#109;&#112;&#108;&#101; dot &#99;&#111;&#109;</noscript>

To most end-users -- including those with screen readers -- it is a standard clickable email address. To those with JavaScript disabled, it appears as "email at example dot com" which is easily user-interpretable.

The function and the code are freely available under a Creative Commons license. I cannot post it here, however, as the license links back to my personal homepage.

I have heavily trafficked sites that use this encoding on email addresses that don't get any spam.

One side note: it's always a good idea to have the email address by copyable and shown as the actual address rather than something like "click here to email us". Lots of people use webmail and can't click on mailto: links as there is no default mail client configured on their PC. (and yes there are systray tools that allow you to enable this, but hardly anyone that uses webmail has them installed.)