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Encrypt Mailto Links to Stop Email Spam

August 2, 2007 | Filed Under Resources by

It’s easy to get spammed. One way to get spammed is to have email links on your websites because bots search through websites looking for <emailaddress>@<host>.<com>.

So, this is the best solution I came across. Type in your email address below and it will shoot back an encrypted mailto link for you to use. It is amazing, works great, and the results validate xHTML Strict.
Original Code by: zapyon.de.

The Input

The Results

19 Responses to Encrypt Mailto Links to Stop Email Spam

  1. Pingback: AndyStratton.com» Accessibly Cloack Email Addresses with jQuery

  2. Amy says:

    Robert, thank you for this great resource. I recently began noticing spam, so I figured the bots had finally trawled my site! It’s the little hacks like this that make life loads easier.

  3. Ventsi says:

    Thanks, Great tool – really nice idea! :)

  4. Bart says:

    Great, I used it on my website. Thanks

  5. phil says:

    Great solution! It open mail program but it leave subject link empty. Is there in adding subject inside html code?

  6. jared says:

    thanks a lot :)

  7. Sean says:

    Thanks, I use this in all my projects!

  8. Sean says:

    thanks, works like a charm

  9. Elizabeth Bromstein says:

    Hi. I’m trying to encrypt an email to add to blog entries. But I’m too dumb to follow the instructions. Do Just cut and paste the code?
    Thanks….

  10. Robert says:

    @Elizabeth Yes you can just copy/paste the code, I would just recommend the first input box (“Complete email link”) because that will take care of making the link for you.

    And, you’re not dumb, one possible issue you may run into is that depending on your blogging platform, your text editor might want to try and decrypt it for you after you post it.

    If that’s the case, you can have your web developer implement this into your theme — http://theandystratton.com/2009/accessibly-cloak-email-addresses-with-jquery

  11. Robin says:

    Thank you for this helpful web tool.

  12. Gavin says:

    Great tool, I love it

  13. Natalie Nash says:

    Very handy resource, thank you!

  14. Tim Dawson says:

    It certainly works as a link, and my e-mail client duly opens (with a subject). But when I hover my mouse over the link I can see the plain text in the status bar, so won’t a bot see the same ?

  15. Rob says:

    @Tim that’s definitely a good point. The browsers do decode the url with no problem, to my knowledge, the bots are typically based on an untranslated/static string search for “xx@xx.xx”. That’s not to say that the spammers are unsophisticated and can’t create a script that will decode it. For another approach check out the Javascript method by my friend Andy — http://theandystratton.com/2009/accessibly-cloak-email-addresses-with-jquery.

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