There are a number of tricks that web masters can use to
try to defeat SpamBot robots from havesting the email addesses
on their web sites.
The first thing is to NOT use the standard "mailto:somebody@someplace.com"
html tag! This is a "red flag" to spambots.
Here is a simple java script you can use to protect your
email address from spam robots if your server does not support
SSI.
<!-- STEP ONE: Paste this code
into the BODY of your HTML document -->
<!--
Just replace "username" with the first part
of the email addess and replace "yoursite.com"
with your email domain name. -->
<BODY>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Begin
user = "username";
site = "yoursite.com";
document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' + user
+ '@' + site + '\">');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '</a>');
// End -->
</SCRIPT>
<!-- You can repeat the second part for additional
email contacts -->
Or you can use another version of this type of email
protection which will allow you to substitute with a text
link rather than displaying your actual email address.
Simply change the variables.
<script language=javascript>
<!--
var contact = "The text you want displayed as the
link"
var email = "NameOfYourEmailAccount"
var emailHost = "YourEmailDomainName.com" //
document.write("<a href=" + "mail"
+ "to:" + email + "@" + emailHost+
">" + contact + "</a>" +
".")
//-->
</script> |
It also helps if you keep all your contact information on ONE
page and restrict the number of spambots from indexing the page
with the following meta tag: "meta name="Robots"
content="noindex,nofollow". Many searchbots, spambots
& web crawlers ignore pages with this tag.
Another trick is to use a simple "form field mail to
form" for your viewers to use to contact you. Again,
try to restrict the contacts to one page with the above meta
tag.
These two tricks might not get them all but it will greatly
reduce the number of spam bots that can harvest your email
addesses.
Below is yet another technique to try for more advanced coders!
How to Protect Email Addresses in
Textarea Fields From Harvesters and Spammers
by Ralph Tegtmeier
Obfuscating web site email addresses by using Unicode is
a nice and - at least currently - pretty efficient trick.
Unfortunately, it won't work very well if you're presenting
some preformatted text in a textarea field: your human visitors
would not be able to recognize the address for what it is.
However, here's a neat work around.
Provided your web server set up allows for Server Side Includes
(SSI), encapsulate your textarea file like this:
<!--# if expr="\"$HTTP_USER_AGENT\" !=
/ExtractorPro|
EmailSiphon|WEBMOLE|Crescent Internet ToolPak| NEWT
ActiveX; Win32|CherryPicker|Microsoft URL Control|
EmailCollector|EmailWolf|NICErsPRO|Telesoft|WebBandit|
WebEMailExtractor| /" -->
<!--#include file="yourfile.txt"-->
<!--# endif -->
You can either include an external file (as in our example
above), or simply put your body text between the initial and
the "endif" tag, in which case you can omit the
"include file" reference.
This will prevent the harvest bots listed above by UserAgent
from scanning your file and any email content it may feature.
Should you detect further UserAgents related to email harvesters,
simply add them to the list above, delimiting them with the
pipe symbol (|).
This text may freely be republished or distributed provided
the following resource box is included intact either at the
beginning or the end of the article and a complimentary copy
or notice (link) is sent to the author at the address specified
below:
Ralph Tegtmeier is the co-founder and principal of fantomaster.com
Ltd. (UK) and fantomaster.com GmbH (Belgium), a company specializing
in webmasters software development, industrial-strength cloaking
and search engine positioning services. He has been a web
marketer since 1994 and is editor-in-chief of fantomNews,
a free newsletter focusing on search engine optimization,
available at: http://fantomaster.com/fantomnews-sub.html
You can contact him at mailto:fneditor@fantomaster.com
(c) copyright 2000 by fantomaster.com
| **
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Additional Info on Spamming
If you are concerned about spamming we have some excellent
information resources geared toward the web master or site
owner.
Laws & Regulations Against Spam
Email Marketing
Ethics and Spam Reporting
How do spammers get people's
email addresses?
Spam Fighter's Toolkit
Top 10 Ways To Legitimately Ask
For Your
Visitor's Contact Info
How to Protect Web Site Email
Addresses
From Harvesters and Spammers
How and Where to Report Spam Abuse
Fight Guest Book and Public
Forum Spam!
Ethical Marketing Tips & Info
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