How to Spam-Proof Your Website

Oh, there’s little worse than receiving tons of spam in your business email inbox. Instead of waking to emails that are relevant you wake to hundreds that are just junk. If this has happened to you, chances are you’ve inadvertently made it easy to spam you. Here’s how to spam-proof your website. And an email inbox full of messages you want to read!

Update Your Domain Contact Information.

When you register your domain you’re required to provide an email address. This email address becomes public information. Unless you select to keep your registration information private. However there are business building reasons to not do this. At any rate, simply use a separate email address for registration. Free accounts like hotmail, Gmail or yahoo are good for this purpose. You can visit them from time to time to sort through the junk and relevant information. This step eliminates you from receiving tons of spam to the email accounts you use on a daily basis.

Update Your Website Text.

SPAMbots essentially scour the internet seeking identifiable email addresses. Now, you of course want to have your email address on your website. You want visitors to be able to contact you. This means your email address is susceptible to those SPAMbots.

The use of JavaScript helps hide your address from would be spammers. The code essentially changes the appearance of your email address. Email harvesters are unable to recognize your email address in the code of your website. However, it still retains 100% functionality on your website.

If you don’t know how to use JavaScript but have done your own HTML coding you can find quick examples of how to change the code online. You can also outsource the task for a few dollars. If you’re in the midst of launching a new business website, ask your designer to take care of this for you.

Another option is a mod_rewrite. This is a bit more technical in nature and requires you to have it installed and accessible on your server and .htaccess file. Again, if you’re not technically inclined, ask your website developer or a technical assistant to handle this for you.

Change Your Contact Forms.

Instead of placing your email address on your website, consider using a contact form instead. This will reduce the spam you receive, though it won’t completely eliminate it. If your email address is still in the html of your website the SPAMbots will still find you. Again, you can mask it with JavaScript.

Share Discriminately.

Finally, when sharing your email address with others, especially on social networking sites, blogs and forums consider writing it out. Instead of janedoe@email.com write JaneDoe at email dot com. This helps prevent your email address from being picked up and added to a spam list.

SPAM is a nuisance. However, there are a few simple things you can do both on and off your website to reduce it. Set up your website with an email contact form. Hide your email address in JavaScript. Share your email address carefully. Finally, assign an email address for newsletters and domain registration. The spam will stay out of your primary email inbox.