Hiding e-mail address with php

[donecweb]

I thought spiders can't read things on the page that are there due to being there via PHP includes. If this is true then why not use a PHP include to hide your e-mail address.

[Sharron]

Originally Posted by donecweb

I thought spiders can't read things on the page that are there due to being there via PHP includes. If this is true then why not use a PHP include to hide your e-mail address.

huh? I'm not aware of that. Once a web page in live, the text that is delivered to a web page via the php code then becomes text in a html format

Just go to any site like JWJ's and view the source code. You won't see any php code, but you will see the results of the code.

[Car Guy]

I found a simple javascript to stop email harvesting.

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
emailE=('xxx@' + 'xxx.com')
document.write('<A href="mailto:' + emailE + '">' + emailE + '</a>')
//-->
</script>

Just replace the "X"s with your email address, and paste into your page code.

Richard

[webado]

Originally Posted by donecweb

I thought spiders can't read things on the page that are there due to being there via PHP includes. If this is true then why not use a PHP include to hide your e-mail address.

php code is not displayed so not read.

But for anything to be a page, it has to be produce html - that's what's read.

If you want to use mailto: that needs to be output as html code.
So that will get seen.

You can have mailto: and no email address, let use fill it out manually. But if you do put out an email address then it's very visible. Unless obfuscated by JavaScript or turned to unicode.

[-=Seth=-]

do you have to have the +

<SCRIPT TYPE="text/javascript">
<!--
emailE=('myemail@' + 'domain.com')
document.write('<A href="mailto:' + emailE + '">' + emailE + '</a>')
//-->
</script>


i tried using css to write the address backward so the harvesters would get the wrong email address, unfortunately when genuine users try to copy and paste it, it comes out backward, not ideal may as well just have a .gif, but i might try your javascript idea

[webado]

Better try this:

http://oyoy.eu/page/jscode/

(scroll down)

[-=Seth=-]

thats a cool little tool

is it possible to Encrypt the email address you use in forms as well

[webado]

Depends how you use the form.

If the form is submitted using mailto: and the email address and the contents of the form, then sure, it's the same as just mailto: alone with the email address that opens the email client.

If the form has an external action script that performs the collection of form data and prepares an email and sends it using server-side mail funcitns, then you don't need to encrypt the email address (cannot do it even). However you should never ever keep the email address of the recipient in the form fields to pass to the action script, let it be coded into the action script itself whihc canot be seen by robots or any users.

[donecweb]

I may be way off here, but I thought bots read the HTML on the server and did not parse the page like a browser does. This would mean they would see the PHP include but would not see the text stored on the server to be placed within the page.

[webado]

Who "they"?

php code is executed on the server and only if it outputs html code (including plain text and javascript) is anything shown in the browser.

Bots read the html code that is OUTPUT by the server the same way it is output to a browser.

Bots like browsers cannot see any php code whatsoever - if they do, the server is badly misconfigured and doesn't work - meaning php is not installed and functional at all.

Look at any of my websites, what evidence of php do you see? none.

Yet every one of my pages is created using several php scripts.