Quick Tip: Protect Your E-mail Address

Make YOUR E-Mail Address Harder to Harvest

You probably know that your e-mail address is worth something.  Nefarious types LOVE to harvest your e-mail address and sell it.  Next thing you know, you're getting more canned meat than you are legit communications.  You start to wonder what you did to bring this on.

Ever notice how I type my e-mail address in this blog?  techlaurels [at] gmail [dot] com.  I don't do that to make it harder for you all.  I do that SPECIFICALLY to make it harder to harvest.

Bots are trained to look for patterns.  The first thing they look for is word@word.tld.  (TLD stands for Top Level Domain.  Dot com is the most well known TLD.  .net, .biz. and .org are other popular TLDs.)  Of course, webmasters have been trying to fool scammers since the web began.  It used to be enough to just exclude the @ sign.  But now, the bots are sophisticated enough to harvest the domain name, as well as the characters that come before.  Now, it is best to exclude both the @ sign and .com.


Does this mean you won't get harvested?  No.  It just means you won't get harvested by a bot.  You can still be "hand harvested," but that's a lot of work.  And they are still scanning for patterns.  You are decreasing the likelihood significantly.  Most scammers are too lazy to harvest by hand.

Keep in mind, a careful harvester will still be able to translate my e-mail address.  When you saw techlaurels [at] gmail [dot] com, most likely your brain translated it into the proper format.  Someone harvesting by hand will do the same.  But it makes it harder for a hand harvester to spot, and it keeps the bots from recognizing it as an e-mail address.

Now, this applies WHEREVER you are sharing your e-mail address, with the exception of web forms and log-ins.  Folks are too cavalier about typing "E-mail me at mary.sucker@yahooey.com" into the comments of a Facebook post.  Who knows, some friend of the friend who you are replying to could have friended the King of Spammers at a meeting last week.  First thing Mr. King does is send his bots through his new pal's facebook.  Next thing you know, your inbox is getting filled with guarantees to enhance your manhood,  customs officials offering to split unclaimed cargo, and proposals from Nigerian Princes.

Protect your e-mail address.  It's a tradeable commodity in today's world.  Mask it whenever possible.  Share it using the name [at] domain [dot] com format, rather than name@domain.com.