Hi,

I put a "join our email list" page on our website so we could build up a mailing list.

I am now being bombarded with spam.  Guess I should have thought about this first.

Is there anyway to avoid this or is just putting an email to address on the page opening yourself up to this sort of deluge?

Some of it was using the form itself but now my email address has been grabbed by some spam list and I'm getting all sorts of offers to enlarge parts of my body, increase my stamina or buy the latest up and coming stock.

Am I screwed already?

Can we see the page Pete?

If you are capturing name/email addresses I don't see how that could contribute to spam

the only way to get bombareded by spam is if YOU give up your email address (not the other way around)

If you go to my home page (in the signature) and click on the email box at the bottom you will get a popup window.

It's a form that yahoo has that sends the email.  The email address is not actually listed on the page itself.

Theres' no way for a spam bot to get that info?

P

Hey Pete...first- nice looking site!

As far as I know there's no way the spam could be comming from that form...unless the spam you are refereing to is people spamming that form- IE you are getting filled in forms that are from "fake visitors"

Can we see a sample of the spam you're getting

thanks Nic,

I don't have any right now, they mostly get filtered and I delete them every day.

It started with the form, it would have the name and email fields and the spam stuff was in the comments.

Now it's just all kinds of spam as regular emails.  I don't reply or click on the links either but it started slowly and now it's a deluge.  I get about 50 a day.

I haven't seen any of the form ones lately but i'll save if I get one and post it.  The rest are all the basic cheap drugs, viagra, enlarge this or that type of spam.  Maybe it's just a coincidence and the spam came from some other source.

Unfortunately there are some web spiders out there whose sole purpose is to find unobscured e-mail addresses on web pages.  On binoware, I've obscured our e-mail address using html character entities.  you can see how it works on the "contact us" page (hint you'll have to look at the source code).

50 a day??? You're a lucky man (i get several hundred)

few things you can do:

1. add a Capthca to your form

2. remove your email address (or break it up) from you pages (as bots will find it) - i see it on 5 pages you can break it up such as "Nancy AT positve..."

altough you have to be careful doing that as it may mess with your customers...monitor

3. use something like Spam Arrest - but again be carefull where you use that since it does add another step for your customers

Capthca!

I had thought of that but didn't know what it was called.

I guess we're trying to personal with the customer service by using our real name emails.  My wife gets 100's of spam emails a day.  I've been pretty lucky with it but it looks like my luck is running out.

My email program filters it pretty well so it's not a big problem yet but it is a pain.

so Steven, how does all that jumbled text  turn into an email address?  that's the part that's doing it no?

(It must be because I posted it and it put the email address there, so I changed it)

p

Don't put an email address on the site - put a contact form on the site

Even then, you can get hammered with spam

All you need is a form that asks for a name and email address and populates a database; follow double opt-in principles and mail shot those that are confirmed

You can put everything on auto pilot and all you need to do is write your email every once in a while.

No need for captchas or anything like that

Each of the numbers between the ampersand(&) and the semicolon(; ) translate into a character.  There is a cheat sheet for the characters at www.ilovejackdaniels.com

The browser automatically translates the entities into their respective characters (which is why I couldn't put up an example), but the bots currently don't translate them.

I use CAPTCHA  on my wordpress blog
Sadly this system has now been beaten by the spammers and I get dozens of spam comments a day.
luckily Aksimet captures and isolates them

Hey, what a coincidence...
I was taking guidance from your site to design my mom's site. she owns a garment business, and I find you here at SR. The world seems so small.
Need not to say, you have a well designed and great site, it is within reach to your target segment (I found it with pretty ease).

Ok about the mail form now, I use Bravenet form processor for the purpose (check conact me on my site), I don't get any spam mail as such... may be because the form is not much used   ;D

you can try a professional service (ie; paid service to manage your forms)

Or just try to use a mail address specifically for forms, it's easy if you use pop3 access to that mail account, that way you will instantly notified too.

you can check the pop3 toolbar my site is offering, that will install a msj logging pop3 to your browser, which is pre set with yahoo, gmail, and hotmail pop3 settings that will give you one click access to mail account.

The suggestion being... change your mail address for forms

Thanks for the kind words Cipher!  It's been a long process but we've learned a lot from peers and places like this where people are happy to share ideas.

I'm starting to think that my email was grabbed elsewhere.  I posted on a couple of blogs and made the mistake of posting my email address which is there for all to see.  I think the ones I got from the form itself was written differently which had the email in the code.

I checked out the Bravenet site, will probably use it but right now I don't need another thing to manage, guess i'll just deal with the spam for now and be wiser in the future.

I would also add that you do not want to use your regular e-mail address if you submit articles to Article Directories.

The wife used her address (our bad for not thinking about it). The spam for her box jumped from 2 or 3 a day to about a hundred a day. She now uses a yahoo address for this. ahhh well live and learn.