Should email addresses be displayed on sites?

its ok to display it as an image...

Then what good does it do? The convenience for your site visitors is gone, in my opinion.

put a mailform...

But then you're viewed as not being as approachable. See the quandry?

Also, I think you're missing the point of this thread. I was bringing up the subject for discussion, not for one-line answers. This is not a problem I'm looking to solve, but an issue I'm wondering what the rest of you think about.

While using the mailto option (linked email address) is easier to use the downside is spam as pointed out, and once you get on a spam list that address is doomed, sure you can change the address but then you do wrong by everyone that has added it to their address book.

Using javascript to jumble up the address is a waste of time, email harvestors can read javascript, same as search engines can. I've seen some good attempts with javascript but at the end of the day it's still a mailto tag.

Forms are the better way but many newbies are afraid of them (I remember I was) and some webmasters ask for way to much information, and some use crap scripts that wont allow domain names other than .com, .net and .org

Email address on images are bad (although I've done it). The image would nearly always be at the bottom of the page and if the page is a image heavy one there is a chance it may not load, or a person stops the page loading so they can read the text or something (I often hit the stop button on sites like ebay which are real slow loading on dialup). Also images are just that and I can't remember ever seeing one with a decent alt message, ideally the email address should be the alt message for screen readers etc but then the image itself is a waste of time as the email address is in the source.

Several ways around it:
use a form that just needs a random, server generated number to access it (like the registeration keyword images), key in the number and the contact details are shown.
Down side: is more work for the person (webmaster and person trying to contact you)

use an automated form (not one of those stupid autoreply ones), insert your email address and an email is sent to the person.
down side: can be abused, people would be unsure as to whether you were a email harvestor or not.

I'm sure something will come along (like using CSS layers on hide with keyword).
Everyone knows there is a spam problem out there and spammers are idiots, most except the forms are there because of it.

First Im sorry I was answering one liners since I was on the phone that time and was intrigued by the question he he he... Anyways heres my longer opinion:

Its really bad putting yoour email ad as texts on your site because of spam issues, also using it as a mailto link.... Showing it using images to show your email ad would give the user the idea that you are communicable, and to easily inform them put large texts for MailUs type of texts and build a mailform under it... Its still spam able but then its lesser spam than putting those text email ad in plain view...

So the question, "I just wrote an article on whether or not email addresses should be displayed on sites." is fairly relative, what is convenient for you and your users? but the question still is you display it by other means than in plain text... sometimes a write like this username@y a h o o dot com... easily understandable but then it wont get indexed as an email ad...

If email harvestors can read javascript I am sure they can get around things like

name@domain dot com
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
name at domain dot com
name(at)domain(dot)com

Write a robots script, and load it up on your server. It doesn`t totally stop them but it takes a lot of wind out of their sails. My e-mail spam has dropped at least 75% since I installed one.

Steve40, do you have an example of such a robots script?

Copy this to note, or wordpad save as .txt file. Load to server in same folder as your index.html page.

User-agent: Titan
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailCollector
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailSiphon
Disallow: /

User-agent: EmailWolf
Disallow: /

User-agent: ExtractorPro
Disallow: /

Oh yes, if you want to validate it go.

Robot text validator

Type in your "url"/robots.txt.

contact form seems best, and dont put your e-mail in a hidden field, put it in the php

theres tons of programs harvesting e-mail from webpages all day long, its really not a good idea to put your email on your site anymore I think

The problem is that from a users perspective email address may be preferable to forms. I'm often wary of forms when I have to use them - even though I know how they work, I have this feeling that I'm sending my message off into space and who knows if anyone is going to respond or not. If I have an email address I have more control over the communication process. Of course, with an email address you never know if it's still valid and anyone is checking it.

So I agree with the point Tim made in his article: "This is one case where what is best for me and what is best for potential clients of mine is directly at odds."

I think that if communication is really important to your site (such as for a business, where you are relying on your site to put you in touch with clients), it's best to provide as many communication methods as possible so people can contact you in multiple ways. Have a form, and email address, and a phone number. And email address must be text (selectable), and must be functional (mailto) links. Displaying it as an image or "dot com" instead doesn't cut it. That's not making it easy for people to contact you.

There's really no getting around spam if you have a website, unfortunately. Just last night I got a bunch of spam emails targetted to advertising @ webmaster-forums.net and a few others - they just guessed at what common email address must be and sent out a bunch of spam. Since we have a catch-all address, they all came to my inbox. No way I could control that unfortunately

Having a good spam filter in your email program helps a lot - spam doesn't really bother me to much because almost none of it makes it through to my inbox (thank you Opera!).

steve40, thats a robots.txt file, is not a script. While it will work for the good bots, the bad bots wont even look at it, do not rely on this file to hide/block files, directories or anything important, use .htacess to block the bad bots by UA or IP (UA = user agent)

Works for me, so thats my opinion of it... get about 2% spam... Anyways My other Tip is that I actually display a mailto, text based email address in another contact page, but mainly as a second option...

When I put up a new site I add a form. It does cut down on the spam and once you are on a spam list, it only escalates from there. The form I use has a thank you message page after the form has been submitted. That way the person does know that it's been sent. There's also an option to have an email sent to the person that submitted the form to thank them and to let them know that we'll be in contact with them asap.

thats not even the tip of the iceberg I'm afriad Steve40.
I block the ones that hit my sites, to date I have about 250 blocked via .htaccess. Do a search for 'perfect ban list' (no quotes), I believe they are still doing a combined one are up to at least 750 if not over a 1000 already.
Also remember your robots file is server load, if you have hundreds of blocks it will slow you down as every bot will read it each time, bad bots read it to find stuff they shouldn't

In some ways a contact form is like putting a mob ph number in a sales ad, it cuts down the time wasters

This post kinda took my interest as I was pondering over this a few months back, If there was someone who can develope a magic bullet solution that can make the mailto problem disappear overnight would be great, but since there isn't one around I have to say that I would go with approachability rather then worrying about spams, at the end of the day its all about communications, I rather look for some alternative software to combat my junk mail rather then risk losing potential contacts or clients, my junk mail filter normally takes care of about 25-40% of the problem, but at least I dont worry about if someone is not going to contact me because they couldnt be bothered to type in my email address.

(lets face it, most people who do contact you have no idea why you just have a text link rather then a straight mailto and are probably not interested wanting to know)

Good points, starter. I read this in an accessibility article recently:

Quote: Why should your visitors have to go through a multi-step sign-up process to ask you a question? It’s your problem when you get spammed—not theirs. Yes, it does frustrate the occasional prankster and gives you a chance to point out help devices such as your FAQ section, but it also means the visitors who really need to contact you have to go through a lot more steps than they should have to. How many times have you hung up the telephone in frustration after listening to all the options of an automated system?

From: http://www.digital-web.com/articles/seven_accessibility_mistakes_part_2/

hey I remember that I did somekind of research a while back with the limits set at 20 to 50 age group at a local workshop I had, I gave them questionnaires to fill-up asking how do they usually contact a websites admin/owner... about 30% said after seeing a visible mail address wether an image or text, they open there mail client and copy the address to mail them... about 60% said they look for a mailform, and the remaining 10% is mixed between the mailto and the write a letter, and call if theres a number displayed... There were about 500 participants... Just an insight...

To add a spin on this topic.

It seems a mailto tag is more prefered, BUT, what if the email was a hotmail, yahoo, gmail account instead of the websites domain name, would that stop you from emailing the person?
Me personally wont email throw away (free) email addresses for the spam reason, even some forms I check see if it has a mailto method.

A study, huh, Demonhale... That's actually a pretty good idea. Maybe I should do some sort of study on how people surf the web, with this as one of the questions.

Yup Tim, pretty much people attending IT seminars like to answer this questionnaires about the Web... Give it a try...

I had a spam today for test@mydomain