Topic: The problem with Email addresses and Spambots

Hi,

So basically It's a question I've had to deal with over the last few years, but never found a perfect solution to, how to display your email address on a web page without having it spammed to hell and beyond.

Ideally I want to display an email address on my page and have it active as a mailto link.

Some examples I've seen use JavaScript, some php, some use both, naturally all these are a nuisance to implement although not difficult, naturoally it's a trade off between Spam being more of a nuisance than implementing the code is.
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One method I'm trying out at the moment is to embed a JavaScript script tag into my HTML that uses document.write with a regular expression to hide the email address and mailto code.

This method isn't ideal as I don't like embedding JavaScript in my HTML and it also invalidates my page.

Anyone out there come across this issue regularly and have a nice work around for it that's not too invasive?

Cheers,



(Edited by Blaise on 08-18-2008 13:50)

I used to worry about that too until I found that using a proper spam filter such as g-mail is easier, more effective and user friendlier than any obfuscation technique could ever be. It's also possible to set up a gmail account with your own domain name.

This might not be ideal, but what about using a simple image?

I think an image is out of question here because it's even more uncomfortable than text. There are plenty of obfuscation techniques that display the e-mail address in plain text. You'd be surprised if you knew how many people don't even know what copy-paste is and who can barely use their e-mail client. Blaise is looking for maximum usability and there are good reasons for that.

Alas this is tradeoff between usability & accessibility and exposure to spamers. Using an image, JavaScript or any form of obfuscation may be efficient but certainly at the cost of accessibility.

I have seen things like: <span class="mailot">name<span style="display: none;">REMOVE</span>@domain<span style="display: none;">REMOVE</span>.tld</span> that were replaced in JS by a <a href="mailto:name@domain.tld">name@domain.tld</a> but that's as bad as any other similar method.

Contact forms, with a human-ish field and/or a honey-pot field ( e.g. "leave this blank", "type the result of 3+1", ... ) are probably still the most accessible and "safe" way to tackle this annoying issue.

Yeah, I would like to use a contact form, but it's a design choice that requires the email, it's silly really it shouldn't be an issue, how annoying that something like spam can render a useful HTML function almost obsolete.

I have a couple custom contact forms and they both get spammed. Eventually, somebody send a bot along that looks for contact forms and they submit random data (spam) into it with the expectation that someone's going to SEE the form results.

I use the JS method of insertion for email addresses that must be visible on the page. How has this turned into a page validation problem for you? That's a little fuzzy for me.

Regards,
- SK

quote:

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I use the JS method of insertion for email addresses that must be visible on the page. How has this turned into a page validation problem for you? That's a little fuzzy for me.

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The problem with that is not the validation but the accessibility.

I simply just put a rob(at)usd21.org and most people figure it out. If not, I created a email form. Initially I was getting spammed by garbage with that as well but created a filtering system that removed links, and profanity.

My .02