What's the best (safest) way to put your email address on your website?

[kareem]

Well, I've heard that you should never place your email link on your website because of the problem with the SPAM. Is this true?

I've heard of SPAM engines that send out spiders which look for any kind of path that resembles an email address such as "something@something.net/com/org/etc.". And once they find a path that looks like an email address, they start SPAMMING it.

I do want visitors to obviously contact me from my website. Email links generally serve me well, however, what should I do to allow visitors the ease but also prevent spammers from getting my address or at least make it harder for them to get it?

Kareem

[qball]

not happening. period.

spam is a tool of advertising.

advertising big $$$$$.


you get mail? (maybe), you get ads.
you get phone? (maybe), you get ads.
you get email? (maybe), you get ads.


why is spam a problem? you're used to ads?

defeat spam. defeat advertising. or, not...

[frnkzks]

use "username at domainnamd dot com" format. Or use a use a form on your web page.

[DocEvi1]

I wouldn't worry too much. I get a bit of spam off my site and that used a form....

Essentially put your email address anywhere and you will get SPAM.

qball, I agree SPAM is just another thing, will mail & telephone I don't mind at all but email, well the problem is it isn't one-or-two emails, my dad regulary has to pull in several hundred messages, non of which are directly for him.

Stefan

[kareem]

Well, I certainly would like it to stop and I think if enough people express an absolute disgust for it, something postive will result. I'm am amazed that some people seem to not think it's a big deal when in fact this is. Personal email addresses have their lost their meaning. More and more folks are less apt to checking their email boxes because of the **** they didn't ask for.

I've heard that Earthlink is trying to do some things - I hope they're successful.

[bahama llama]

Over the last three years I have had my own domain and I use difrerent email address every site I leave my email address at. (auto email forwarding is awesome!). If I leave it a buy.com I would use buy@mydomain, etc. From what I found is the main culprit was ebay! 95% or more of my spam comes with ebay@mydomain, the other comes from mass spamming of my isp(Adelphia) and I had a problem with pny. I had bought some ram from them a while back and filled out the rebate, which they denied, then they sold my email address for spam! how about that! I really do not get any spam from my email address on my website so I wouldn't worry. Oh, yeah one fun thing to do is when you find out who is spamming you, like pny, sign up again with an email address like techsupport@pny.com they love getting their own spam! Don;)

[DocEvi1]

Originally posted by bahama llama
Oh, yeah one fun thing to do is when you find out who is spamming you, like pny, sign up again with an email address like techsupport@pny.com they love getting their own spam! Don;)

I love that, great idea.

Stefan

[fishybawb]

Originally posted by kareem
I do want visitors to obviously contact me from my website. Email links generally serve me well, however, what should I do to allow visitors the ease but also prevent spammers from getting my address or at least make it harder for them to get it?


There was a method touted as being effective a while back - basically you write the address in HTML as its equivalent Unicode representation. I've no idea how foolproof it actually is, but you can read about it here (http://fantomaster.com/famshield0.html).

[qball]

not happening. period.


spam, define please...

unwanted email? advertising?

if you want to be seen and heard, expect others to see and hear you.

saying that:

how do you propose to stop spam? If I can email my buddy list, a 3gig pic of my cat?

[Spardan]

b-llama - nice ideas! *kewl*.

Agree with q-ball...

as long as you have an email address, you're gonna get spam. even if you never sign up for anything, if a company wanted to send an email to every combination of letters and numbers at, say H0tm@il, they'd get you. the thing to do is delete, block, and ignore.

...or use the llama method ;)!

[AllGamer]

using a FORM base contact is the best way to prevent annoying SPAM, yet still maintaining contact with the website visitors

another way is a FORUM, so you can make it interactive, like here in SysOpt

:t

[bassman]

I most definitely agree on the form solution; here's how to do it: http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_form_mail

[qball]

all these brilliant ideas, yet SPAM still here.

Your ideas are very creative, and somewhat effective, but your seeing trees, not the forrest.

The FTC, Federal Trade Commision, is concerned about SPAM, and once set up a test email address, then did nothing and waited. Never using the email, they recieved a message known as SPAM within:

1) 1 minute.
2) 10 minutes.
3) 1 hour.
4) 1 day.
5) 1 week.

?

Much like junk mail, junk fax, and telemarketing...

"if you want to be seen and heard, expect others to see and hear you."

Extra credit if you know why 'junk mail, junk fax, and telemarketing' is somewhat controlled/managed?

[gtaylor]

Use a form and some server side script like ASP (if your ISP will allow it) and that should mask most of what's going on.

[chakorules]

I used a cgi script on this website to create a clickable link:

http://www.qsiautomation.com/contactinfo.shtml



source code....


#!/usr/bin/perl

## This program redirects outgoing mail to avoid any "mailto" tags
## Example Tag
## <A HREF="/cgi-bin/antispam/antispam.pl?spambot=automaiton&beware=qsiautomation.com">Send me some email!</A>



## Is this properly posted from a web page?
$ENV{"REQUEST_METHOD"} || exit(1);

## Is it a POST?
if ($ENV{"REQUEST_METHOD"} eq "POST" &&
$ENV{"CONTENT_TYPE"} &&
$ENV{"CONTENT_TYPE"} eq "application/x-www-form-urlencoded" &&
$ENV{"CONTENT_LENGTH"}) {

$clength = int($ENV{"CONTENT_LENGTH"});

if ($clength>200) { $clength=200; }
read(STDIN, $line, $clength);
&GetNameDomain;
}

## Perhaps it is a GET?
else {
$ENV{"QUERY_STRING"} || exit(2);
$line = $ENV{"QUERY_STRING"};
&GetNameDomain;
}

## Tell the browser where to go:

$|++;
print "Location: mailto:$name\@$domain\n\n";
print "Email to $name\@$domain!\n";
close(STDOUT);
exit;

##==========================================##
sub GetNameDomain {

$name="MT"; $domain="MT";
if ($line =~ /(.*)=(.*)&(.*)=(.*)/) {
$name=$2; $domain=$4;
}

} ## end of the sub GetNameDomain

[itismike]

I like this (http://www.hostedscripts.com/scripts/antispam.html) link. It explains itself and generates 100 fake email addresses and then links back to itself, sending spambots into an endless loop. :D I don't know how effective it really is, but I put it just above my real email address on my site.

-Mike

[j.m@talk]

:eek:

[itismike]

? What do you mean by :eek: ?? Doesn't this seem like a fair move? :p

[Tweb]

If u don't wanna use a script or froms try only accepting text email with or with out attachments. U can ask ur ISP if u can set it up this way.

[charlesreid1]

you could enter your email address in the html code as unicode characters, and that would display the email like normal but for hte spiders searching for your email address in the code it wouldn't see address@domain.com.

http://home.att.net/~jameskass/INDEXUNI.HTM

sorry if this isn't much of a help, and it may be tedious, but that's what i do... and besides, you can write your email address in chinese if you want. ;-)