They've Stolen My AT
Many people place their email addresses on their Web sites or the Web sites they build. Then, as soon as the site is uploaded to the Internet, their email boxes are flooded with spam. How can you stop this? Try creating a link to your email address.
A common way to make a link to your email address is using the tag:
for example:
When pressing this link, the email client software is opened with your email address in the form field. This is correct if the surfer is using an email client software such as Outlook or Eudora.
When people use Web mail such as gmail or hotmail, clicking a link to an email is useless. For those users, you must provide a different kind of a link to your email:
for example:
The Web mail users cannot USE the link, but they can see your email address, which they can copy and paste or write and type into their Web mail interface.
Specialized software called "spiders" scans the Web pages that are stored on a company's servers. The spiders are also known as "crawlers" or "knowledge-bots" or just "knowbots." Spiders surf the Internet. They are sent out by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN. Their job is to update the databases of the specific search engines that send them out.
Want a surprise? If you have Web pages that include your email address, then use your favorite search engine to do a search on your email address. The results may surprise you.
There Are Different Types of Spiders
As we've discussed, one type of spider is used to update search engine databases. Another type is used by people who are interested in collecting and using email addresses for their own purposes. These people use spiders to harvest email addresses from Web pages so they can send out advertisements or viruses or anything else that you don't want to the addresses they collect. These spider programs are called "spam bots," and the people who send them out are called "spammers." Spam bots scan Web pages exactly like the search engine spiders do, except that they look for the @ mark, or the source code "mailto:" that is used when constructing an email link.
What Does a Spider See on My Site?
Spiders don't see Web pages like you do. You see a picture of a page that is "rendered" or built by your browser. The behind-the-scenes building blocks used to create a Web page is called "source code" or "HTML code." The spider sees only the source code.
Here's an example. Let's assume that the following appears in the source code of a Web page:

This is the source code to display an image file named "imageFile.jpg". Your browser reads the source code, accesses the image file, and then shows it on screen. The spider, on the other hand, only reads the source code. It doesn't try to access the actual image file. The spider sees only:

In another example, the following appears in the source code:
When you use your browser, you see the text Welcome written in green letters: Welcome
The spider, on the other hand, doesn't see any colors. All it sees is the source code.
The source code for an email link on an HTML page looks like this:
or perhaps like this:
Because HTML pages are plain text, it is easy for spiders to extract email addresses. A spider looks first for either the @ sign or the phrase "mailto:". Once the spider recognizes either of these items, it easily figures out the email address that is part of the source code. Therefore, never write your email address as part of the source code. Do not write it as a part of the src property, as a content, in the
But, what if you still want your email address to appear on your Web page, in spite of the above? How can you prevent spiders from recognizing that it's an email address?
Use ONE of the following methods to hide the following email address: joe@hotmail.com from the spiders.
Anti-spam Method No. 1: Add Text to the email Address
Example:
Clearly the address "REMOVETHISjoe@hotmail.com" doesn't exist. In order for the address to be valid and useful, the user must erase the text REMOVETHIS, which is easy.
But if everyone in the world adds REMOVETHIS, then the spiders will start to understand what is going on. To prevent this, use a variety of different phrases, for example:
Another possibility:
Anti-spam Method No. 2: Use Decimal Internet-safe Characters
The following table shows that the decimal values of the characters a to z are from 97 to 122.
Dec | 45 | 46 | 64 | 95 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 | 104 | 105 | 106 | 107 |
Char | - | . | @ | _ | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k |
Dec | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 117 | 118 | 119 | 120 | 121 | 122 |
Char | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
Example: using decimal equivalents, change the source code from:
to

The user will see Send an email in the browser window. When putting the cursor over the link, the email address can be viewed in the status bar.
As you can see, there is a mixture of regular and ASCII characters. When the user clicks on the link, everything will work fine. However, if users want to see the source code, they will find two surprises:/p>
- They will not find the @ sign.
- Special efforts will be required to decipher the code.
If the spider has the decimal/character conversion tables, then the effort to hide the address may be useless.
Anti-spam Method No. 3: Use Hexadecimal Internet-safe Characters
The following table shows that the hexadecimal values of the characters a to z are between 61HEX and 7aHEX
Hex | 2d | 2e | 40 | 5f | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 6a | 6b |
Char | - | . | @ | _ | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k |
Hex | 6c | 6d | 6e | 6f | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 7a |
Char | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | x | y | z |
Example: using hexadecimal equivalents of characters, change the source code from:
to

Users will see Send an email in the browser window. When putting the cursor over the link, they will see the email address in the status bar.
When clicking on the link, everything will work fine. But, if the users want to see the source code, they will find two surprises:
- They will not find the @ sign.
- They will have difficulties in translating the hexadecimal numbers into English letters.
If the spider has hexadecimal conversion tables, then the effort will have been useless.
Anti-spam Method No. 4: Use an Image of the email Link
Example:

Similar images of email addresses can be generated at the Digital Colony
If you are worried that the spider will be able to convert the image into text by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, then check out this image.

It is doubtful that this image could be converted to text by OCR software.
Creating such an image takes time and effort. Only a human eye and a human mind can discern the email address that is hidden in the graphic.
What is the source code for this image?

That's the whole source code. Do NOT "wrap" the image with b = "hotmail.com";
document.write("");
document.write("email");
document.write("");
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