keeperofstars wrote
Another quick trick is to make sure your emails dont use the mailto: format, as most bots scan sites for the mailto: link.
Granted some spiders just grab all hyperlinks, but most spam ones look for mailto: as a way to find emails. I made a special span tag for my emails in the html/text editor which makes it look like a link etc but its really just plain text. Granted clicking on it does nothing but my users are use to it and know its for a security measure.
Yeah, don't kid yourself. Bots use regular expressions that can search for what looks like an email, especially if it's just clear text in the HTML document. Most will find email addresses whether they are in a link that uses mailto: or not. And, ones that are obfuscated simply by using their encoded equivalents are still easy targets, too. I'd even expect smarter bot programmers to be capable of stealing the JavaScript you use in your page to obfuscate the email address and use it against you to harvest the emails in clear text.
The best option: NEVER show an email address on a site in text form. And, if you need to see them, make it a separate request to reveal the email address and make that request bot-proof by using turing tests or other bot prevention methods.
And, lastly, once your email address is in the public for a few seconds, forget about combatting spam. Better to change your email address. And, even then, unless you use some really odd, but acceptable characters in your email alias, you'll still get spam. 