Protecting e-mail address against spambots with free account

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  klugb · Member · May 3, 2011 at 9:24 pm

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  After searching for over an hour I could not find out if it is possible to protect my email address in pages/articles against spambots.

  If I try to use HTML-codes like foo@bar.org WordPress converts them to normal characters, readable for spambots.

  Is there any solution to this problem? I’d really hate to get more spam, and in Germany you must show an e-mail address for legal reasons.

  Help please :)

  B.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 3, 2011 at 9:26 pm

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  Why not try a contact form?

  http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact-form/

  Your email address will be hidden from spammers, and all submitted emails are passed through Akismet before being sent on to you.

  Update: Sorry, didn’t notice the Germany part there. I’ve never heard of that law before, are you sure a contact form wouldn’t suffice? If not, I suppose you could do something like: you (at) email (dot) com

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  timethief · Member · May 3, 2011 at 10:05 pm

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  There are other approaches one can use. Please see here > Eluding Email Address Spam Bots > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2007/10/18/eluding-email-address-spam-bots/

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  theianfox · Member · May 3, 2011 at 10:23 pm

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  Would an image file with your email address in it be legal?

  If so this site http://chxo.com/labelgen/ can create an image file for you of your email address. Then simply insert it into a post as an image.

  Or create your own image in one of the Photoshop style websites like Pixlr, Aviary or Photoshop.com

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  thesacredpath · Member · May 3, 2011 at 11:28 pm

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  An image file would, but the problem is that the image would still have to be linked to your email address if you wanted them to be able to click on it to contact you. If all you want is for them to be able to look at it and then (hopefully correctly) type it into their email client, then yes an image would work.

  Timethief offers some good ways of munging and disguising email addresses in her post and the more or less ultimate solution is the contact form because it is filtered through Akismet which means any known spam will be caught before it ever gets to you.

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  klugb · Member · May 4, 2011 at 11:08 am

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  Thanks for all the feedback, it really helped. Yes, an image is sufficient for the legal stuff. And if I assign a “mailto:” link to the image in UTF-8 notation, WP seems to keep the code (for some weird reason it converts the “mailto:” into readable characters, though, but leaves the rest coded).

  And yes, a contact form would be the perfect means for all other purposes. So thanks again,

  B.

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  staff-blorbo · Staff · May 4, 2011 at 7:49 pm

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  You’re welcome!