Spam Protection: Is it useful to write on websites [at] instead of @?
Question by Compi | 2012-04-23 at 17:38
Today, often you can see on web sites instead of mail@example.com one of the following notations:
mail[at]example.com mail[at]example[dot].com mail(at)example(dot).com
Sense of the whole thing is, of course, to protect yourself from crawlers, searching the Internet for e-mail addresses to send spam mails. These crawlers look after the @-sign in their attempt to come to email addresses.
I would like to discuss once, if that makes sense or the whole thing is only a waste of effort.
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If I were a crawler, and I were introduced to catch as many e-mail addresses as I could, I would rather search for [at], (at), [ad] and [ad] than for the @-sign. I think, with this approach, the yield would be a lot bigger, because now everyone's email addresses are written in that style.
If you already want to abbreviate the mail address, I would prefer something extraordinary that not everyone get. For example:
The Ä is not as widespread as the other solutions, and therefore, crawlers might look at that probably less likely. Also, the spaces make it safer and more difficult because only a person can make the real connection.
But if the older people understand that? I doubt it, and ease of use is also something else.
2012-04-25 at 11:25
Basically, I would just post no email addresses on the Internet at all! Everything else sooner or later leads to spam, no matter how you try to protect yourself!
2012-04-26 at 10:58
I think, this is a double edged sword. Sure, it's a good idea to publish no e-mail addresses in the net. However, in some countries, one is obliged to do so according to the imprint obligation, because otherwise, you can be admonished.
And I would not be surprised, when a court would decide that writing an [at] is an insufficient labeling of an email address. That would mean, that you can injure your legal imprint obligations by using a [at] notation.
Unfortunately, this is like that in some countries, I also would prefer a contact form (which would also have other advantages over an e-mail address), but the jurisprudence, at this point, seem to have to go probably a long further way to reach the Internet life.
2012-04-29 at 05:09
Simply publish your e-mail address as an image file. So you're definitely on the safe side and the crawler can nothing do anymore!
2012-04-30 at 19:01
Caution! Image files with e-mail addresses in the imprint can be admonished! Finally, with this, accessibility is no longer be guaranteed.
Elsewhere on the website, that would be a possibility, but I can imagine that the crawlers do not need a long time until they will also understand pictures!
2012-05-02 at 16:17