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I'm wondering what is the safest way to display an email address publicly and what are the reasons for doing so? E.g. I have often seen xxxx [at] domain [dot] com, etc. Is this the safest and clearest way?

Sayanee
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    The clearest way is, obviously, `john.doe@example.com`. What do you mean by publicly? In a contact page? In a user profile page? – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 01 '11 at 12:23
  • possible duplicate of [Is it worth obfuscating email addresses on the web these days?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4098408/), [What are some ways to protect emails on websites from spambots?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/308772/), [Making email addresses safe from bots on a webpage?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/163628/), [Best way to obfuscate an e-mail address on a website?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/748780/). – Cody Gray - on strike Feb 01 '11 at 12:39
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    And possibly the best reference is on Super User: [Does email address obfuscation actually work?](http://superuser.com/questions/235937/does-email-address-obfuscation-actually-work) – Cody Gray - on strike Feb 01 '11 at 12:41

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I guess not. A cleverly programmed spam parser will probably get that. I usually make a jpeg image of the address and put that on a public page. Guess that's almost 100% save.

Chris
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  • Unless you strive to make that image illegible, i.e. CAPTCHA-like, I don't think it's a big improvement. – R. Martinho Fernandes Feb 01 '11 at 12:27
  • How will the parser know which image contains the email? Unless the parser goes through EVERY image of your page and checks the result for a valid email address (which would be insane) it IS a big improvement! – Chris Apr 15 '14 at 19:38
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I find the easiest approach to be to post my address in the clear/with a normal unobfuscated link, and to let GMail's spam filters take care of the rest. I get very, very little spam.

nicolaskruchten
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