By Lowell Brown
Did You Know?
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Did you know that you can reduce your vulnerability to spam email by protecting the way your email address is displayed on your website?
Let’s face it. We all get lots of spam email. While spam email filters are a great way to weed out those annoying emails within your email client, the best protection is to restrict your vulnerability.
Email addresses are commonly posted on web site contact pages or staff directories. Your email address may also be posted on the Internet in various directories such as your domain name registrar details. These web pages are all publicly visible and your email address is up for the taking!
Many people don’t realize that one of the leading causes of receiving spam originates from email address(s) being posted on various website pages (another major cause is from joining sites, online promotions, or community forums from sites that don’t follow common online privacy practices).
Malicious hackers have developed specialized scripts called “bots” that automatically scour the web looking for email addresses and building lists that they then sell or distribute to spammers. That’s one way you get spam.
The best protection is to not post or submit your email address on the Internet. If you keep your address private, hackers wont find it. But, you do need to post your email address(s) on your site so your clients can get in contact with you right? There are coding practices that should be used on web site pages which will “mask” your email address from spammers and bots. Specialized coding “tricks” can fool these bots by adjusting the way the email addresses “look” in the code. It is not 100% bot-proof, but research shows that it does make a difference.
If you are sick of getting tons of spam and have your email links posted all over your site, contact Insight Design. We’ll be happy to help control your spam vulnerabilities. We won’t eliminate the spam, but we’ll help restrict it.