Every day my various mailboxes are bloated by spam and it’s a problem that seems to be worsening. So I’ve decided to do something about it by encrypting all of my email addresses that appear on my websites.

There are a variety of alternatives to not displaying your email address, the most popular of which is asking anyone interested in contacting you to fill in a form. I hate doing that myself - especially when the amount of information asked for borders on the ridiculous - and so have shied away from that option in favour of encryption.

The idea is that although human visitors will be able to see my email address, harvesters ploughing through my code will not.

I encrypt my emails by using an online tool provided free of charge by Mysterious Ways. You simply key in the email address you want encrypted, press the button and it gives you the code to paste into your web page.

Does it work?

Well, unfortunately, I’m closing the stable door after the horse has bolted in that my email addresses have already been harvested and circulated by spammers. But I’m hoping that it will stop future harvesters in their tracks and reduce the amount of spam I receive over time.

For the two new sites that have had the benefit of encryption from day one I can honestly say I haven’t received a single spam email.