The Creative Design Blog

Do you want to hide the email address you use for your website to stop spammers from harvesting it?

You need to have a “mailto:” link on your site so that people can contact you when they have a comment or question. This requires putting your email address on the page.

But this causes a big problem: spammers want your email address. So they send out a robot with the mission of finding and capturing all the addresses it can. This is done by examining the HTML code used by browsers to render each webpage. All the bot has to do is save the email address it finds in your “mailto” link.

The two most common methods of “hiding” the email address:

* Munging. This technique doesn’t use a link at all. The email address is disguised by using words for the symbols. Example: janedoe AT yahoo DOT com

* Encoding. This is most often done by using standard ASCII code. The advantage of this code is that browsers will print the letters or symbols that they are given the ASCII code for, so the webpage shows a readable ( to humans ) email address. Consequently, the “mailto:” link can still be used. Here’s and example to show what a very simple email address a @ b.com would be coded as:

& #97; & #64; & #98; & #46; & #99; & #111; & #109; ( spaces added to prevent your browser from printing the actual letters )

The “mailto:” link can still be used, because the browser will recognize the code and print out the real email address on the page.

But these techniques are no longer good enough.

These methods may have worked when they were first introduced, but one should never underestimate the intelligence of the hackers who program the spambots. There are new bots that can decode both of these email encryption techniques.

These two methods by no means exhaust the possibilities. A Google search on “hide email address” turns up over two million results. Even discounting duplicate methods, there are undoubtedly quite a few ingenious techniques available.

So what is the next step for me?

Without going through all of the Google entries, I can predict beyond a reasonable doubt that the method I use myself does a better job of protecting your email address than any other. How can I be so sure? Because I doubt that any hacker would have the time or skill to write a bot that would allow him to grab my email address — it’s that well hidden!

The method I devised hides the email address off the webpage itself. Not only that, the javascript file containing the address is even in a completely different folder that’s not accessible to anyone – just to the website itself. But even though it cannot be seen anywhere in the HTML code of the page, it DOES magically appear on the page itself, where anyone can see it – except a robot!

I hear you saying, “But that’s impossible!” Well, it’s not. Just visit the website in the paragraph below, and you can find out how it’s done.

Visit the author’s website, Professor’s Coding Corner for some useful code snippets and tutorials on interesting aspects of web programming. In particular, the article, Stop Spambots will demonstrate the proper way to protect your website.

Trying to learn how to put together a website for the first time can be extremely frustrating if you’re doing it on your own. For this reason Ive decided to write this articles so that you’ll not only know how to set it up but also how everything works together.

First of all its important to know about the components of a website and how it actually functions. If learned in the proper context it will make a lot of sense and you wont have to go through the frustration of trying to figure it out on your own.

Ok first off I should explain that there are two basic requirements for getting a website live: A domain name and hosting. Its important to get hosting because the hosting company will store all your website files on a protected server so that your website is protected and you can accept visitors to site. The hosting company keeps all your files on their computers. You could host from your own computer but its very risky because its very easy for hackers to hack personal computers. This service is very cheap and usually starts at about $5/month.

The second technical requirement you need to take care of is your domain name. The biggest domain name registrar is GoDaddy and is the company I always go with because they have great service and its easy to use. The domain is the www.domainname.com part of your website.

Next you’ll need to connect your domain name to your hosting account so that when someone types in your domain name to go to your website it accesses the files that your hosting company is housing. When you sign up for hosting they’ll give you what are called nameservers. You attach these to your domain name to make that connection. If you just go into your domain name account there should be an option to change your name servers. As soon as you find that just plug in the name servers you got from your hosting company and you’re good to go.

The next step is install your content management system (CMS). Go into your hosting account and find the “fantastico” button. Open that up and you’ll be given a list of a lot of different CMS’s. These are programs that let you manage your websites really easily and many of them without having to deal with code. I usually go with WordPress but it really depends on what kind of website you’re going for.

Once that’s installed you have just created your very first website! Now all you need to do is add your content!

Learn more about Thrive Learning Institute. Stop by Terry Roper’s site where you can find out all about Thrive Institute of Learning and what it can do for you.

If you’re curious about where your favicon is displayed, just follow along, and you’ll find out.

To do this, I’ll give you the URLs of two websites. They are two of my favorites, but most of you have probably never been to either one before. If you have, then choose the one you have never visited. That way you can see the favicon appearing suddenly, when the browser finds and displays it. Here are the URLs, but don’t go there yet! Wait a minute!

URL1: www.stormcarib.com

URL2: www.triddlers.com

1st Place: the Address Bar

All right. Let’s go. The first thing I want you to do is open a new tab ( or new window if you have to ). Now type in your URL in the Address Bar. Look quick – there’s the favicon! It’s just to the left of what you just typed in.

2nd Place: the Tab Bar

Are you using a tabbed browser, like Firefox or a later version of Internet Explorer? Then you should also see the favicon to the left of the website title in the tab bar.

3rd Place: Bookmarks or Favorites

If you’ve never been to this URL before, it obviously won’t be in your bookmarks yet. So click on ‘Favorites’, then ‘Add to Favorites’. Now just click ‘Add’. Go back to ‘Favorites’, and you should see your new favorite at the bottom of the list, with its favicon just to the left.

If you recently created your own favicon, but you can’t find it in any of its locations, don’t worry! This is a frequent occurrence. Keep reading:

1) Clear your cache.

2) If you still can’t find your favicon, close and reopen your browser.

3) If that still doesn’t work, there are only two possibilities left: a) Your browser doesn’t support favicons, which is highly unlikely, or b) You don’t really HAVE a favicon!

Just because is says ‘favicon.ico’, that doesn’t make it a REAL favicon. Make sure that you create a favicon properly, so that it can work properly. See below for more information.

I can show you where to go to create a favicon to use on your own website. Visit my blog at ScriptsForYourWebsite.com for lots of great easy-to-use plugins and scripts for your own blog.

Scripts can be a great way to increase the quality of your website. There are many different types of scripts that you can choose from. You can use scripts for your website to perform many different types of functions. You can pay for your scripts or search for decent scripts online for free. Some open source scripts can be excellent.

You can get scripts to make your site more functional, or you can get scripts to help your online business. There are scripts that make it easy for you to sell pictures or other kinds of online products. You can add search engine scripts to your website that make your site appear more professional and make it easier to navigate. You can even add scripts to provide music for your visitors. You can use scripts to insert movie-streaming capabilities into your website too. Scripts are also useful for hosting files and sharing other types of information.

Scripts are great if you want to let your users communicate with each other. Scripts are necessary for forums. Scripts can make it simple to navigate and find information on any website. Scripts also make it easier for webmasters to share information with their clients.

Scripts are a great way to create a complex website. Even if you are building a complex site, you can make your website very easy to use. Scripts can make the navigation of your site simple and easy. They can also be used to create a unique presentation. Scripts allow users to easily create websites that are very difficult to design, because they make the whole web-designing process much easier.

People who have no experience in building websites can use scripts and build websites that are comparable to what web gurus have. Scripts take the hassle out of designing and organizing websites. But should you have trouble with installation, there are professionals who will be happy to do this task for you at a reasonable fee.

The value that you can get by using a good script may be extensive. Just by using one script, you could increase your profits. Experiment a bit with different kinds of scripts to help you decide what you really want on your website.

One thing that webmasters use scripts for is to discover what visitors are doing and where they are going on their website. Once this is known, then ads can be placed right in the path that visitors are travelling on the site, leading to more profitability. Statistics provided by scripts may even show that some pages are not producing well, and should be revised or done away with.

There are many different types of scripts available. Any type of script you want can be implemented. You just need to decide what part of your website you want to enhance. By implementing a single money-making script, you could be on your way to earning a greater profits. Whatever script you choose will be based on your present needs, but you can always use more or better scripts in the future to enhance your site. If you need help in choosing the proper script, you can visit a website that will make it easy for you to find scripts that are hassle-free. Just look in the box below.

Do you need scripts for your website? I only recommend scripts that I have personally tested and that I can vouch for. You can see lots of them in use right on my own scripts for websites blog.