using form buttons for spamproof email-addresses

Question

I have been looking at some methods for spamproof email methods here. I'd like to propose a more simple approach: Since I need a couple of different email addresses I considered just using a selectbox with JS or serverside redirect, as per examples on here. Because google doesn't spider forms (dixit Matt Cutts), and spam-harvester script don't either (I think????) this would make sense to do.

I would love to be able to do this without using a script. So why not use one form per email?

<form action="mailto:[email protected]" method="get">
<input type="submit" value="[email protected]"/>
</form>

It seems the button text can be copied but not pasted, so that's a disadvantage.

Is this approach any good? or any other recommendations?

Answer 1

A robot uses the text of the page to get the email. It does not care if that text is in a button or within the body so using a button will not help.

Outside of using javascript, the only solution I know of would be written text, an image or Flash.

Create an image with your email or write out the email like: "test at domain dot tld"

Flash could provide you with a more secure (but not 100%) way of allowing people to click on an email but would not work on iPhone browsers and those that do not have the plug-in.

Another way is to use a simple captcha to before displaying the email in the PHP code.

Email: (1+2 = ?) then [email protected]

Answer 2

Because:

1. The email address is still in the page, and thus easily harvestable
2. mailto: URIs as form actions often fail

The reason server side form handlers stop email addresses being harvested is because the email address is not exposed to the user.