As far fetched as it might sound to a lot of you, spammers CAN get your email address from your Web site. They have something called Spam Bots. These Spam Bots are programs that search through Web pages looking for email addresses they can use. They look for the @ sign that every email address has, then they back track to the next blank space and copy your email address from there. They also search for the "mailto:" tag that you use to link to your email address from your Web page.
Spooky, scary even, and very true. So what can you do to prevent these Spam Bots from finding and using your email address while still allowing your readers to send you email? This script will break up the email address into separate parts and also keep the parts separate from the "mailto" tag. As far as I know, Spam Bots have not figured out how to get around this one, yet.
To change this script to use your email address just change the email address values, your name, and the message you want to have with your email address. I've written all these parts in all capital letters to make it easier for you to find. Look for these words and replace them with your own email address and message:
- FIRST PART - Beginning of your email address. If your email is joy@nosuchemail.com then you would put the word "joy" here (without the quotes).
- DOMAIN - The part after the @ sign. Using the example above this would be "nosuchemail" (without the quotes).
- .COM - If your email address ends with .com then that's what would go here. If it ends with .net then that's what goes here. If it ends with .org then that's what goes here. If it ends with.... well, you get the idea.
- SEND ME AN EMAIL, - This is the beginning of your email message. You can put whatever you want here.
- YOUR NAME - This is where you put your name, nickname, or whatever you want to be called.
- , AND I'LL GET BACK TO YOU. - The ending to your message. Again, you can put whatever you want here.
Just copy this code, paste it into your Web page where you want your email address and change the code as I mentioned above. Here's the code:
<script language="JavaScript">
<!-- Hide me from older non-JavaScript-enabled browsers
var name = "FIRST PART";
var atsign = "@";
var virtual_domain = "DOMAIN";
var dotcom = ".COM";
document.write("<div align=center>SEND ME AN EMAIL, ");
document.write("<a href=mailto:", name + atsign +
virtual_domain + dotcom, ">YOUR NAME</a>");
document.write(", AND I'LL GET BACK TO YOU.");
document.write("</div>");
// -->
</script>