ANTI-S*P^A#M: Protecting Your Web Site's Email Address(es)

 by: Maria Marsala

Did you know that there are software programs that view web sites and steal email addresses? It's called "harvesting" because they're harvesting your email address from your site. This may be one of the reasons your web site email address is receiving more s*p^a#m than wanted email.

When I first started teaching web design classes, I strongly suggested that students place their email address on each page - it makes your site a bit more "trustable." But it turns out this is just leaving you wide open to harvesting.

So now, what I suggest are links on each page directed to a single contact information page, where your email address is encrypted. If the s*p^a#mmers end up figuring out the encryption, it's still easier for you to change one page worth of information vs. many pages of information.

Encrypting your email address makes the gathering process a little more difficult while it provides that legitimate email get through to you.

If you find that one encryption program has stopped working, see if the provider updated the code you were using (many provide regular updates) or change to another service.

Do you have PayPal payment or shopping cart links on your site? Up until about a month ago, the old PayPal coding included your email address. If you haven't upgraded recently, update your PayPal links to include the encrypted code they provide, too. Changing that code stopped quite a bit of unwanted email from reaching me.

Here are some helpful encryption program resources:

http://automaticlabs.com/products/enkoderform/

http://www.robertgraham.com/tools/mailtoencoder.html

http://natata.hn3.net/antispam_encoder.htm

http://www.tucows.com/preview/266685.html

http://innerpeace.org/escrambler.shtml

http://www.wbwip.com/wbw/emailencoder.html

http://w2.syronex.com/jmr/safemailto/

Encryption programs - A VERY good thing to use on your web site to reduce unwanted email.