Web Design question: why do many links to email addresses not have the @ symbol?

[Evan Wiener]

I noticed laltely that a lot of people who put their contact info on a website often don't put a direct link of:
Name@Domain.com (which normally would link to "Mailto:Name@Domain.com")

but instead will put:

Name at Domain.com and not link it.

Why is that? Too many spam bots sending mail to their email address through the link?

[JABSEN]

To avoid bots picking up their email.

[Taki Soma]

I noticed laltely that a lot of people who put their contact info on a website often don't put a direct link of:
Name@Domain.com (which normally would link to "Mailto:Name@Domain.com")

but instead will put:

Name at Domain.com and not link it.

Why is that? Too many spam bots sending mail to their email address through the link?

yeah, you're just setting yourself up if you do that.

so I've been told so I have been doing the name @ domain dot comcom on my site.

[Evan Wiener]

I'm always afraid I'll scare off potential contacts on my site, but I think I may create a contact form to fill out to email me. And I will probably do what you did, Taki. Thanks!

[THAT Sean!]

You can have Javascript drop in your email address onload in such a way that spiders and bots won't pick it up, but I did what you're contemplating and put up a contact form. But prepare to get the occasional spambot gibberish through that as well.

[Glenn H]

The best way is to use some form of javascript. It will work just like normal html but won't be picked up by site scrubbers. A contact form is one of the things you should not do unless you are using a well known hardened form script. This is too easy for a spammer to open your machine into an open relay or worse. This method is whats known as "injection". As soon as there is any user input on a webpage it is suspect for injection hacking.