Imaging an Address

Imaging an Address — Brandon Munday <mundayrb%[email protected]> offers a suggestion for displaying your email address on a Web page in a manner that prevents automated spiders from sucking it down:

I used an image editing program to create a graphic image of my email address, in a font and size similar to that used by most browsers. I saved it as a GIF with a transparent background. Then I placed that image on the Web page anywhere I needed the email address, and used something like "Email address" as the alternate text for the image. Further, I removed all "mailto:" links, and added an apology that there was no clickable link, and asked for the reader’s understanding. This way, anyone looking at the Web page with a browser with images enabled sees my email address in clear text. But the address does not exist as part of the page’s text, so no spider or robot can glean the information automatically.