"Anti-Spam
Two Step for Webmasters."
By Thomas Benton
If your email address is on a website that's
been online for a while you're being blasted with unsolicited
email (SPAM).You can delete it or you can eliminate much of it
in two simple steps.
Step 1: Scramble Your Email Address
It isn't human visitors to your site that are
causing the problem. It's website spidering SPAMBOTS. These spambots
go out on the web and harvest any email address they can find.
These harvested email addresses are then sold by unscrupulous
*spam pushers*.
Your goal is to hide your email address from
the spambots, but still display it for your website visitors to
see.If the spambot doesn't recogize your scrambled code as an
email address it won't harvest it.
Search the web for scripts that will scramble
your email address. You will find many free scripts and some that
you can purchase. Some are simple and easy to install. Others
can be a little more complicated.
The one that I like is called EScrambler. It
is a free script developed by InnerPeace.org. You can visit their
site and copy the source code (permission given on the site).
Or, go to http://www.webdesignwisdom.com/escrambler.shtml.
This simple script generates a javascript that
scrambles your email address. Just copy the script and paste it
in your HTML instead of the normal mailto:me@mydomain.com. Your
email address is displayed properly for visitors to see, and the
HTML looks like anything but an email address.
An example of *me@mydomain.com* in escrambled
form:
Step 2: Send Spam to Your Auto-Delete
Account
Now, just because you've scrambled your email
address, that doesn't keep all spammers from sending email to
you. Some will just use something like *anything*@yourdomain.com
because they understand that most websites have email forwarding.Anything
that is emailed to your domain will be forwarded to an email address
you specified.
You never have to see this email if you forward
it to another email address that automatically deletes it.
You will need a free email account that offers
some simple anti-spam features to use as your *dump account*.
You must be able to designate email addresses
from which you will not accept any email. You may already have
an account that can handle it. If not, look into Mail.com or Lycos.com.
Then make your free email dump account the default
forwarding address in your website's email handler. Go to your
free email account and set it to reject all mail received from
YOUR domain.
Then have email that is sent to your published
email addresses (those you have scrambled on your site) forwarded
to your normal forwarding address. Or, set them up as individual
POP accounts if your hosting service offers this feature.
Now you will receive email from your website
visitors whoactually read your email address on your website and
all other email will be deleted.
This is a very effective way to get rid of most
spam that is generated from your domain. It won't eliminate all
of it. The volume of spam that I was receiving decreased by 90-95%
after I made these changes.
This tactic will work for sites that have been
online with an unprotected email address too. Change the email
address on your site to a different scrambled address. Forward
all email that is sent to your old posted address to your dump
account.
If you've been using your primary email address
on your site, you'll need to notify everyone that your email address
has changed. This makes it more difficult, but worth the effort
if you're being slammed with spam.
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