email spam problem (bad)

[Dj]

I'm having a really bad problem with email spam. My fault of course because I didn't encrpt email addresses or use captcha codes initially. Over the past few days, I have been painfully editing all my sites for future protection. But, is this enough? Even though I have captcha codes on my forms now, if you view source, you can see the email address. This makes me wonder if I am still at risk.

If this is sufficient coverage now should I change the email address once I finish?

Or will the spam eventually stop or slow down with the existing email address?

[ChiliPepperWeb]

To hide the e-mail address in your source code, try using this tool:

http://hivelogic.com/enkoder/form

I've used it on my pages since the beginning and it has done a good job of keeping my spam volume low. You probably can't do much about the spammers that already have your address, but you can keep any new ones from getting it. Spam also tends to go in cycles; you'll get bombarded for a couple of months and then it'll go down by half or more for a couple of months, and then go back up as spammers and spam fighters alternate finding new ways to beat each other.

[Dj]

Yup that's the one I found as well. I am almost done implementing it. I'm still wondering if I should change my email address.

Thanks for responding.

[ChiliPepperWeb]

If the e-mail address is only used for the forms and is not one you're handing out to people on business cards and such, then I would definitely go ahead and change it because only you will know the difference. Otherwise I would consider setting up a separate address for your forms to submit to. Not using common prefixes like info@, sales@, webmaster@, etc. will reduce the amount of random spam you get, since all spammers need is your domain name to hit those. If your personal business address (yourname@company.com) is getting that much spam directly and not just from the forms, you've got to weigh the cost/benefits of either changing your address and getting people to use the new one, or investing in a good filtering program and checking the quarantine every day. If the spam is under 100 a day I would probably recommend just getting a filter.