protecting email addresses on a web site
in [General]
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From: David Mehler on 14 Jun 2010 08:02 Hello, I've got a site that is needing to have two email addresses on it, one for general contact and information and the other for webmaster for site problems. I do not want these addresses to become harvested by spammers yet i want to make it possible for people to email if needed. I can not use javascript for this solution. Suggestions appreciated. Thanks. Dave.
From: Ashley Sheridan on 14 Jun 2010 08:06 On Mon, 2010-06-14 at 08:02 -0400, David Mehler wrote: > Hello, > I've got a site that is needing to have two email addresses on it, one > for general contact and information and the other for webmaster for > site problems. I do not want these addresses to become harvested by > spammers yet i want to make it possible for people to email if needed. > I can not use javascript for this solution. > Suggestions appreciated. > Thanks. > Dave. > If Javascript isn't a solution (which I can understand for accessibility reasons) then the only method I've seen that seems to work is to have the email as an image in the same font style as it would be on the page if it were just text. Facebook uses this to display contact email addresses for people, and I've seen it used elsewhere also. The only other method I've seen is to add in extra characters with a small note to humans to remove them, but I find this quite a messy solution. Unfortunately, you can't get away with just a contact form these days if you're a business, as it's a legal requirement in some countries to have a contact details available, and not just a contact form. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
From: "HallMarc Websites" on 14 Jun 2010 08:36 -----Original Message----- From: Ashley Sheridan [mailto:ash(a)ashleysheridan.co.uk] Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 8:06 AM To: David Mehler Cc: php-general Subject: Re: [PHP] protecting email addresses on a web site On Mon, 2010-06-14 at 08:02 -0400, David Mehler wrote: > Hello, > I've got a site that is needing to have two email addresses on it, one > for general contact and information and the other for webmaster for > site problems. I do not want these addresses to become harvested by > spammers yet i want to make it possible for people to email if needed. > I can not use javascript for this solution. > Suggestions appreciated. > Thanks. > Dave. > If Javascript isn't a solution (which I can understand for accessibility reasons) then the only method I've seen that seems to work is to have the email as an image in the same font style as it would be on the page if it were just text. Facebook uses this to display contact email addresses for people, and I've seen it used elsewhere also. The only other method I've seen is to add in extra characters with a small note to humans to remove them, but I find this quite a messy solution. Unfortunately, you can't get away with just a contact form these days if you're a business, as it's a legal requirement in some countries to have a contact details available, and not just a contact form. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk Another is a CSS solution where you type the email address backwards and then use the CSS style declaration: style="direction: rtl; unicode-bidi: bidi-override;" Marc Hall HallMarc Websites __________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 5194 (20100614) __________ The message was checked by ESET Smart Security. http://www.eset.com
From: Ashley Sheridan on 14 Jun 2010 08:37 On Mon, 2010-06-14 at 08:26 -0400, David Mehler wrote: > Hi, > Thanks. How does putting the email address as the same font as the > text stop crawlers from getting it? > Thanks. > Dave. > > > On 6/14/10, Ashley Sheridan <ash(a)ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote: > > On Mon, 2010-06-14 at 08:02 -0400, David Mehler wrote: > > > >> Hello, > >> I've got a site that is needing to have two email addresses on it, one > >> for general contact and information and the other for webmaster for > >> site problems. I do not want these addresses to become harvested by > >> spammers yet i want to make it possible for people to email if needed. > >> I can not use javascript for this solution. > >> Suggestions appreciated. > >> Thanks. > >> Dave. > >> > > > > > > If Javascript isn't a solution (which I can understand for accessibility > > reasons) then the only method I've seen that seems to work is to have > > the email as an image in the same font style as it would be on the page > > if it were just text. Facebook uses this to display contact email > > addresses for people, and I've seen it used elsewhere also. The only > > other method I've seen is to add in extra characters with a small note > > to humans to remove them, but I find this quite a messy solution. > > > > Unfortunately, you can't get away with just a contact form these days if > > you're a business, as it's a legal requirement in some countries to have > > a contact details available, and not just a contact form. > > > > Thanks, > > Ash > > http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk > > > > > > Hope you don't mind, I've copied the list back on in this reply. What Facebook used to do (it doesn't seem to any more for some reason) is have a small image with the email address on, and the filename is a random string of letters and numbers. Presumably the thought is that the spiders that spammers use to harvest email addresses won't be using OCR on every image it comes across to detect an email address as that would be too time-consuming for them. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
From: tedd on 14 Jun 2010 09:18
At 8:36 AM -0400 6/14/10, HallMarc Websites wrote: >Another is a CSS solution where you type the email address backwards and >then use the CSS style declaration: >style="direction: rtl; unicode-bidi: bidi-override;" > >Marc Hall >HallMarc Websites Marc: That's clever. I never saw that before. I guess that you could also span portions of it to reverse and other portions not to. Interesting. Thanks, tedd -- ------- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com |