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View Full Version : Tip: Hiding your site's e-mail address from spammers


Andrew Hardscape
04-20-2008, 02:14 PM
I am learning as I go and I'm sharing my knowledge.

Spammers crawl websites and obtain your e-mail address, thus sending you loads and loads of spam e-mails.

There is a way to keep the e-mail address clickable on the site, but the
spam crawlers won't be able to see it. I just recently had many internal changes made to our site. One of the changes is we re-configured the clickable e-mail link to javascript. It hides the e-mail in a javascript that the spam-crawlers ignore.
Dvmcmr
04-12-2009, 11:21 PM
Spammers are an insatiable pain in the butt, good for you for figuring out a way to keep them somewhat at bay and sharing it.
GDK
10-01-2009, 12:33 PM
ironic i must say...
4seasons
10-01-2009, 06:15 PM
too bad this site cant keep spammers out.... holy cow!
Mbella
10-01-2009, 11:13 PM
too bad this site cant keep spammers out.... holy cow!

Yeah, as the site has grown, it's become more of a problem. Many boards have the same issue, but have full time moderators to handle the problem. There are three of us here and we are all contractors doing the same things you guys do as well as maintaining this site.

We are working on some changes, one of which is reduce the amount of spam.
MuirView Design
10-01-2009, 11:42 PM
Mike,

Can we set it up so that if you have more than 4 consonants or vowels in a row you are automatically banned?

Seriously, there are several pages of banned screen names for spamming. Considering how much of it comes in, I think its handled pretty quickly.

It's good too if you guys report spam. We get an email with a link to the post and one of us can usually delete it through our phones if it's in the middle of a work day.

Mike recently made it a requirement to have a location and time you've been in business in order to register on the site. It's helped a little, but it's still coming in.

All I can say is just ignore it until it's deleted. Don't click on those links posted. Could be something viral.
4seasons
10-02-2009, 08:59 AM
If you do more than 4 constanants in a row Matt wouldn't be able to post anymore! lol!
CaptainsLS
10-02-2009, 09:09 AM
All that needs to be done is to create an authorization command at registration. You know those fuzzy letters that are hard to see which you need to copy when filling out a form? It solves all the spam issues.
Mbella
10-02-2009, 09:23 AM
All that needs to be done is to create an authorization command at registration. You know those fuzzy letters that are hard to see which you need to copy when filling out a form? It solves all the spam issues.

Captain, image verification is enabled and has been for some time.
CaptainsLS
10-02-2009, 10:02 AM
wow, i didn’t see that. I cant believe they are getting through that. I thought most of the spam was computer automated... i guess a real person actually registers.
Mbella
10-02-2009, 11:11 AM
wow, i didn’t see that. I cant believe they are getting through that. I thought most of the spam was computer automated... i guess a real person actually registers.

Yeah, I've tested it and it works. You should see all the emails I get from blocked registrations.