Recently, one of the AR members was complaining on her blog about the curse of spam mails flooding her mailboxes. I read that blog and suggested her few things on how to minimize spam. As expected, she was unaware that her site was one place where unscrupulous email harvesters are always lurking around and stealing her email address.

Through this post, I will try explain how anybody can take simple steps to minimize the chances of you email id leakage from your site.

1) Using email at domain dot com format : You can try using your emails in format like enovabiz at gmail dot com format. It's not a very effective technique. I won't even recommend you to to waste your time implementing it.

2) Use of Javascript : Javascript can be used to dynamically write Email Id. While it will insulate you to a little extent, this is not the best solution . It has few drawbacks. Browsers need to be Javascript enabled (though, most of them are now enabled). Secondly and more importantly, clever email harvesters can and will still read your email address .

3) Use of Image : Much better option. you can always show your email id in an image.
Main drawback though is it is not very user friendly since your site visitor cannot copy & paste email id and use it in their email clients. But still worth a try.


4) CSS : This is clever and serves the purpose.You can use it like this

enovabiz<span class='hideMe'>dontmess</span>@gmail.com

hideMe can be defined like this

.hideMe{display:none;}

This will ensure that while your site visitors will be able to copy, paste and use it easily, email harvesting bots will not be able to (atleast not all of them)

5) Contact Form : This is the best way to keep your email address from falling in to wrong hands. Do not display the email address! You can always use a simple contact form . Contact forms can be made in in asp, asp.net or .php as per your server requirements. They are very easy, more informative, very safe and manageable. I strongly urge all my clients to get a contact form for their site.

I hope this post will prove helpful to some of you struggling with spams and unsolicited emails. If anybody wants to make their website spam proof, you can always contact me!