Can SpamBots read hyperlink of image?

[Paul Proefrock]

Can anyone help me to understand how the spambots harvest addresses from
webpages.

If I use an image of a computer with the text, "for more info, click the
image", then set that hyperlink as a mailto: and my address, will the
spambots be able to find the email address

do they read the code of the page looking for the tags or do the just look
for the "@" symbol in the text of the page?

I am trying to spamproof some of the sites I have. I don't know if I need to
replace every hyperlink with a JavaScript or just those that I want to show
the full email address.

thanks for any help

Paul P

 

[Thomas A. Rowe]

If you can see the full mailto on the page in Normal/Browser or in HTML / Code / Source View, the
spam robots can grab it.

The best solution is to remove all email addresses from your site, even if you can hide them with
JavaScript and instead use server-side scripting to process any emails, this way even a person
looking at the page can not grab the email addresses.

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Thomas A. Rowe (Microsoft MVP - FrontPage)
WEBMASTER Resources(tm)

FrontPage Resources, WebCircle, MS KB Quick Links, etc.
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[Mike Mueller]

Paul-
Any link that is visible in the page source is visible
to a robot. My webs have the email on a form and the form
results go to a custom coded asp page that assembles the
email and attaches the address there. I feel this is a
superior and cleaner method than a mailto as the addresses
are not visible to the sender or to the bots, and the
clients email program is not needed to do this. You can
also grab other info such as headers, etc.

Mike


Paul Proefrock wrote:
: Can anyone help me to understand how the spambots harvest
: addresses from webpages.
:
: If I use an image of a computer with the text, "for more
: info, click the image", then set that hyperlink as a
: mailto: and my address, will the spambots be able to
: find the email address
:
: do they read the code of the page looking for the tags or
: do the just look for the "@" symbol in the text of the
: page?
:
: I am trying to spamproof some of the sites I have. I
: don't know if I need to replace every hyperlink with a
: JavaScript or just those that I want to show the full
: email address.
:
: thanks for any help
:
: Paul P