As you may or may not be aware, companies send out all sorts of little spiderbots across the web to collect information. Some like Google have their spiders looking for content they can index for their searches.
Others use the spiders to collect email addresses so they can send some lovely spam your way. There is a little trick you can use to make email addresses on web pages invisible to these little spiders.
Encoders like Hivelogic: Enkoder will turn your email address into javascript code that people can read but the spider’s can’t. If you look in the right hand column of my home page, the Contact The Writer link was created using Hivelogic’s Enkoder.
The javascript the enkoder generated version of my email address looks something like this-
{var kode=
“kode=”nrgh@%rnhg_%@@{ghnr,
00+fghFrduFkrpiuj1lqwu@V {.;>45.@,f?3+fli6>,0″+
“+lDwghFrdufkh1rg@n~f.,l.k>jwhq1oghnrl?3>l@u+ir*>@*> {_%__C~jkqu33__3/__.ijk”+
“IugxInuslxm4otzxCY~1>A781C/
iB6.iol9A/3.oGzjkIugxink4ujCq01i1/o1nAmzkt4r”+
“jkquoB6AoCx.lu-AC-A~01(nFxm6t662b1lmnLxj {Lqxvo{p7rw}{F\\014AD:;4F2″+
“lE91lrogr@hrnhgv1oswl*+,*u1yh”+
“uhhv,+m1lr+q**,%>{@**>iru+l@3>
l?+nrgh1ohqjwk04,>l.@5,~ {.@nrgh1fkduDw+l.4,.”+
“nrgh1fkduDw+l,00nrgh@ {.+l?nrgh1ohqjwkBnrgh1fkduDw+nrgh1ohqjwk04,=**,>””+
“;x=”;for(i=0;i<kode.length;i++) {c=kode.charCodeAt(i)-3;if(c<0)c+=128;x+=S"+
"tring.fromCharCode(c)}kode=x";var i,c,x;while(eval(kode));}
Which is why you have to cut and paste the what it generates into your webpage. As the Hivelogic page says, the only way to be completely safe is to avoid publishing your email address on the web at all. As a place of business, you want your patrons and donors to be able to easily discover how to reach you so omitting your email contact information may be an impediment to developing a relationship with valuable constituencies.
Encoders like this one can help cut down on the junk mail while making email addresses generally available.
