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jack@example.com
<a href='mai etc.....
Recent related thread. There are many.
[webmasterworld.com ]
...I wanted to know if it will actually prevent spam bots from grabbing email addresses on my site if I simiply remove the @ with an image?
Presumably you have removed the mailto: anchor as well? ... It should certainly help.
In the past I have tended to go for a JS approach. Turning something like this:
<span class="antispam">joe -at- exa[REMOVE THIS]mple -dot- com</span>
Into this:
<a href="mailto:joe@example.com">joe@example.com</a>
Using JS after the page has loaded. A human can read the email with JS disabled and email grabbers (in theory) do not run the JS. Although in recent times I'm not convinced this approach is 100%! (Kinda depends how much you obfuscate the email addr in the first place.)
...a lot of people just won't fill out any form.
I think one reason why some don't fill out a contact form is that they don't have any record of what they have sent (without going to some effort). You could include a checkbox "[x] Send me a copy" so they at least get a copy of what they have sent.
I think one reason why some don't fill out a contact form is that they don't have any record of what they have sent (without going to some effort). You could include a checkbox "[x] Send me a copy" so they at least get a copy of what they have sent.
Ah, a "real" custom confirmation page is in order complete with first name personalization, let them know you'll reply to their <emailaddress> and/or contact them at their <telephone> if required. Show them what they entered previously in a nicely formatted layout and let them know that a copy has been sent via email for their records. Use that entered form information to your advantange. Make it seem as if a real person just answered their contact request online. It can be done!
Contact forms are a gold mine! Truly, they are. But, you need to make sure you put up a barrier for the spambots or you'll be battling those all day long instead of actual contact requests. What a pain in the arse they can be. We've finally nailed it I think, and have gotten it down to less than 1% which was the goal. Its difficult to get around those human bots that traverse the form and figure out what we have going on at the surface. Only to find out we have more going on after the fact. ;)
does that look like it would be ok?
somedudesname<img src="/assets/images/e.gif" alt="">hiswebsite.com
Well, I would certainly be surprised if a robot did pick that up as an email address. However, it's not impossible...
...email addresses of businesses in a directory type thing.
Hhmmm, sounds like you could have a lot! If you are a high profile site with 1000's of email addresses and a spammer noticed how you were obfuscating your email addresses then it wouldn't be difficult for them to modify their 'robot' script to grab your email addresses with a simple regular expression. Just a thought.
Hi there not sure if this is the right category, but I wanted to know if it will actually prevent spam bots from grabbing email addresses on my site if I simiply remove the @ with an image?
Only some of them. That solution was nullified years ago.
These days, I would not put a "visible" email address on a website, not unless it was a disposable one. Once that address hits the first UBE/UCE list, its viral and exponential from there.
If a client absolutely has to have email addresses, then I will typically make an image of the address and not have any part of it available for indexing, nada!
But then you have the human bots to deal with. They come along and visually scan for stuff like this and do it the old fashioned way. In some industries, a underhanded competitor would do some damage using this method. You can't really hide much these days, not when it comes to email. Even forms are not 100% reliable.
