Forum Moderators: phranque
Do spambots look for "mailto" or @ followed by a domain name, or do they look for a host of things? Is each one different?
If I list a contact email address, like joe@domain.com, but don't link it, will a spambot pick it up? (whether people will be willing to copy and paste it in their mail program is another issue).
On a personal site, I've used joe @ domain.com (with spaces and without linking). Seems to work. Fine for a personal site, but I'd never use such a method on my commercial site.
I'd like to avoid a form (based on a personal dislike for them that is probably irrational), but will use one if there's no easy workaround.
Any suggestions appreciated.
My guess is that a spambot will pick up anything that looks like an email address, with knowledge of the mailto: protocol; so both mailto:user@domain.com (as a "href") and user@domain.com will be grabbed.
There are various tricks you can use to show an email address but not have it appear in "plain text" within the page source - however most are browser version dependent and you'll have to be careful about how older browsers deal with your trick.
