Reducing Electronic Junk Mail (SPAM)

Nearly everyone who has an e-mail account receives unsolicited electronic junk mail (SPAM) on a daily basis. This is especially true if your e-mail address is posted on a web page. Many companies utilize automated robot software programs designed to search web pages and "harvest" e-mail addresses for the company's databases. These databases are used for electronic advertising campaigns and are sold and/or traded to other spammers.

These applications work by looking for code with the @ sign and mailto: command. If your e-mail address must be published on the web, you can reduce the amount of unsolicited mail by using Javascript to encode your address so that it is invisible to the automated robot programs.

For the people who use browser that does not support Javascript programs, they will not able to implement Javascript encoded e-mail address on the browser. If this is the case then you can put an image that shows email address in it.

INSTRUCTION FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF JAVASCRIPT

(1) Standard HTML code for creating an e-mail address hot link is:

<a href="mailto:name_person@odu.edu">Name of person</a>

(2) Replace the HTML code with the following Javascript

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=JAVASCRIPT TYPE="TEXT/JAVASCRIPT">
$name="name_person"; $domain="odu.edu"; // Adding name and domain
$email = $name + "@" + $domain; //!! Please DO NOT alter
$link = "Name_of_person" || $email; // OPTIONAL: Add link text
document.write("<a href=\"mailto:" + $email + "\">" + $link + "</a>");
</SCRIPT>
<NOSCRIPT><b><i>This page uses javascript to protect Email addresses from bots</i></b></NOSCRIPT>

Allowed changes in above code:
=> Value "name_person" is replaced to your name. This value describes the word before @ sign in emai
l=> Value "odu.edu" can be replaced by the desired domain name - ex. aol.com or ts.org
=> Value "Name_of_person" can be replaced by your name.

When the Browser translates the code, there is not difference in how the link appears on the web - the wording visible on the Internet is exactly the same with both codes.

Usage with Lotus Notes client web page designer

(1) Open the web page that you want to edit - be sure you are viewing the HTML code.
(2) Select Actions > Edit Document.
(3) For all active e-mail address links, replace the HTML code with Javascript shown above.
(4) Select the Javascript text, then select Text > Pass-Thru HTML.
(5) Save the document and check it through the browser to verify correct implementation

If you have any questions about implementation, please contact webadmin.