Spider Protection

[Anon]

Does anyone know a way to use PHP for protection from email spiders?

I found a page... http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol4/design_no21.htm that offers a way to stop spiders from finding your email by using javascript. Unfortunatly you can't use Javascript though a php print function. So I am looking for an alternative. The goal is to make it so browsing spiders can't see my email, but people on the page and click and get a mailto response.

Thanks

[Anon]

Sure you can use javascrit. The idea is that the email address is composed clientside when the client executes the javascript. Since email spiders don't have javascript implemented, they wont get the emails.

If you want to do it serverside, you can check the $HTTP_USER_AGENT, for example like this:

if (preg_match ("/EmailWolf|EmailCollector|EmailSiphon|ExtractorPro|Mozilla.*NEWT|CherryPicker|Crescent|WebBandit|NICErsPRO/i",$HTTP_USER_AGENT)) {...}

The problem is that often the email spiders set's fake $HTTP_USER_AGENT, so that you really don't know if it is a spieder or a browser....

[Anon]

Here is what I do:

have a link on the page like this...
<a href="pagename.php?action=email1">Email Me</a>

Put some php code in the javascript area before the body tag on the same page....

<script>
<?php
if($GET['action'] == "email1"){
print "window.location = \"mailto:[e-mail]\";";
}elseif($GET['action'] == "email2"){
print "window.location = \"[e-mail]\";";
}
?>
</script>

Let the link post back to the same page name and voila, the default email client will appear (if they have on)

I have used this method for over 2 years, and I never get spam.

Ron

[Anon]

I would think having the full line [e-mail] would be just what the spiders want. Maybe they are looking in plain text? Or maybe they just look for the line starting with mailto, since it starts with \" it fails? I will give it a try. Thanks

[Anon]

The \" is an escape character with the print command.

Ron

[Anon]

as I understand it, the spider won't follow pagename.php?action=email1 and so never get "[e-mail]". It is this additional step, to click on pagename.php?action=email1, that reveals the email by generating the new page.