Webmasters often compromise usability to protect the employees of an organization from spam. Yes, employees in the organization will receive less spam, however it makes it much more difficult for users to contact the company in the way they are comfortable with. One such example is clicking on an email address and sending a message directly from the link. The downside to this approach is that a link placed on a page in a native format will often expose the email address to robots on the Internet that crawl websites looking for email addresses.
URL Encoding
A little used technique called URL encoding can help protect email addresses from robots and also allow users to interact with a website in the same manner that are accustomed to. This technique encodes the url in a format that just about any modern browser will interpret as a regular email address link.
How it Works
URL encoding works by storing characters in an expanded format by using ASCII codes with HTML special character encoding. For example, these two email addresses are equivalent as a web browser sees them.
Normal Email Address
foo@bar.com
URL Encoded Email Address
foo@bar.com
Encode Email Addresses Tool
Use the Javascript form below to URL encode email addresses to help protect them from spam bots. This form does not store any email addresses. Onepax does not make any guarantees about this tool and by using the tool, you agree to use it at your own risk.
October 16, 2007 
