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Protect Your Website E-mail Address
Overview
Have you ever wondered why you get so much e-mail SPAM? One reason
may be that your e-mail address is being harvested directly from your
website. This is a problem that can be easily resolved and you
might be surprised at the number of people that don't know how to deal
with this nuisance. In this article, we will learn more about how
your e-mail gets into the hands of spammers and how to slow them down.
Body
Let me start by saying that I absolutely despise e-mail SPAM. Are
you with me? If so, read on.
E-mail spamming is big, big business. People have written computer
programs that send out little SPAM bots that do nothing but scour
websites (such as yours) in search of e-mail addresses. These
e-mail address can either be in the visible portion or the coded portion
of a web page. Once collected, or harvested, these e-mail
addresses (including yours) are sold to all kinds of less-than-desirable
organizations so they can send you even more e-mail SPAM.
There are other tricks spammers use as well, but let’s start with
remedies we can easily implement. Here are some of the options:
1. Use a Contact Form service. HTML type contact forms,
unfortunately, need your e-mail address in the coded part of your web
page. However, you can use 3rd party e-mail processing services
that shield your e-mail address from SPAM bots. One such service,
formmail.com, is affordable and it works pretty well. It does,
however, require a small bit of technical ability to get it up and
running.
2. Don’t make your e-mail click-able. You may have seen
that, on some websites, you can click an e-mail address and if you are
using Outlook, Outlook Express, or Eudora, a “new message” window will
pop up that is already addressed to the link you clicked. It does
not matter if the link said “E-mail Me” or if it was the e-mail address
itself. Either way, SPAM bots can snag it. There are methods to
deal with this (see #5, below).
3. Put your e-mail address in an image file. You can create
a small image file that consists of your e-mail address. If you
don’t make it clickable, your website visitor can re-type your e-mail
address into their e-mail program. It’s not as slick, but it
works.
4. Break your e-mail address apart. This involves changing
how your e-mail address is displayed to make it more difficult for SPAM
bots to figure out what it is. Here is an example: example [at]
gmail [dot] com. Most people can understand what this means, but
they will not be able to just copy and paste the e-mail address into an
e-mail program.
5. Add an encryption Java script. You can find these
scripts pretty easily on the Web by searching with a keyphrase, “email
encrypt javascript,” or similar. Basically, these scripts break
your e-mail address into parts that are reassembled only when someone
clicks on the linked text. However, make sure that your linked
text is not your e-mail address.
6. Use an e-mail encryption program. These programs rewrite
the text linking to your e-mail address into numeric code that browsers
can interpret, but SPAM bots can not (well, not easily) figure out.
One excellent tool is at mailtoprotector.com – and, the price is right.
Make sure that your linked text is not your e-mail address, however.
7. Don’t use obvious e-mail address names. Spammers, by
default, send mail to e-mail address like info@, support@, webmaster@,
help@, billing@, hr@ - well, you get the idea. Since your domain
name is in the public domain, it is easy to build a SPAM list that
contains these words with your domain name. As an alternative,
consider moreinfo@ or helpme@ or gethelp@, etc.
8. Use disposable e-mail addresses. There are a variety of
services on the Web that let you create disposable e-mail addresses.
If you are willing to pay around $19.95 to Yahoo, you can get this
service. Every time I go to a website that wants my e-mail
address, I quickly create a new, disposable one, such as golsvcs-microcenter@yahoo.com
for a computer vendor, Micro Center. Two good things come of this.
First, I know who is sending the junk mail and second, I can “kill” the
e-mail account any time I wish and I have protected my personal or
business e-mail account.
While none of these methods will prevent all SPAM from reaching you,
they go a long way toward thwarting all the SPAM bots that visit your
website on a regular basis. Keep fighting SPAM!
------------------
About the Author. Bill Golden, founder of Golden Web Design Services,
has grown up with technology since the early 1980s. As the first
“PC Guru” for a US Midwest Fortune 500 company, he directed a variety of
corporate development initiatives over a 17 year period. Bill then
managed a technical training company before starting his own consulting
practice in 2001, specializing in website development, marketing, and
search engine optimization. If you are interested in learning more
about how Bill can help improve your website rankings, you can reach him
at http://www.goldenwebs.biz.
Check out one of our recent web design projects, Infinity Fitness!
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