Image

This method of hiding an email address from harvesters uses an image file (rather than text) to display the address. The address you see below looks like text, but it is actually an image of text. If you right-click it and select Properties, you will see that it is a GIF file called email.gif.

Because harvesters only see this as an image file, they can't read the address. Unfortunately, neither can any visitor who has images disabled. Therein lies the first disadvantage of this method: Images must be turned on at the user's end. However this will only affect a very small number of users.

The second disadvantage is that, like cryptic text, the email address is not a hyperlink so it cannot be clicked on. Instead the user must open their email client, create a new email and manually enter the address. If you like, you could provide a short explanation about how and why they need to do this.

Note: Although you could actually turn the image into a hyperlink if you wanted to, that would make it visible to harvesters.

On the plus side, using an image gives you more flexibility with font and style than normal page text.

To create the image file

• Open any graphics application and create a new image approximately 25-30 pixels high and 100-200 pixels wide.
• Using the text tool, type your email address into the image.
• Resize and colour the text if necessary (for more info see Resizing Images).
• Save the file as a GIF file (for more info see Saving GIF Files).
• Place the image on the web page (for more info see HTML Image Tags).

Next page: Password-Protected Addresses