The Importance of Safeguarding Your Email Address on WordPress

If you own a WordPress website or WooCommerce store, it is crucial to protect your email address from spam bots. In this article, we will explore the significance of email address protection and how you can effectively safeguard your email addresses from spammers with the help of a WordPress email encoder. Follow our step-by-step tutorial to learn more.

The Significance of Email Address Protection

Displaying your email address openly on your website can make you an easy target for spam, phishing, and malware attacks. Cybercriminals employ email-harvesting bots to collect email addresses from the web and sell them to spammers worldwide. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to use contact forms as an alternative to displaying your email address directly on your site. However, there may be instances where you need to share an email address that users can copy or click. This is where an email encoder comes into play.

Installation and Activation of the Email Address Encoder Plugin

To begin, follow these simple steps to install and activate the Email Address Encoder plugin:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to the “Plugins” section and click on “Add New.”
3. Type “Email Address Encoder” in the search bar.
4. Locate the Email Address Encoder plugin and click “Install Now.”
5. Once the installation is complete, click “Activate” to enable the plugin.

How to Encode Email Addresses with the Email Address Encoder Plugin

Once the Email Address Encoder plugin is activated, it will automatically encode email addresses on your WordPress site. This means converting plain text email addresses into decimal and hexadecimal entities. Let’s take a look at an example of how an encoded email address appears in the page source:

myemail@example.com

While email harvesting bots cannot decipher the encoded email addresses, regular users can still view them in plain text format on their browsers.

Customizing Email Address Encoder Settings

The Email Address Encoder plugin functions effectively with default settings, but you have the option to customize its configuration. Follow these steps to do so:

1. Login to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Click on “Settings” and select “Email Encoder.”
3. In the settings panel, you can configure various options (Note: Some options are only available in the premium version).

These settings allow you to choose how the plugin searches for email addresses on your WordPress site and the method it uses to encode the emails. You can opt for HTML entities, CSS direction, ROT13 encoding, or polymorphous ROT47/CSS. It’s important to note that the latter two options rely on JavaScript to function.

Securing Phone Numbers on Your Website

In addition to protecting email addresses, the Email Address Encoder plugin also allows you to encode phone numbers on your WordPress site. Simply wrap the phone number in the [encode] shortcode, and the plugin will hide the number from bots. If you need further instructions, refer to our guide on using shortcodes in WordPress.

Conclusion

By implementing an email encoder on your WordPress site, you can effectively shield your email addresses from spam bots. Don’t forget to install and activate the Email Address Encoder plugin, and customize the settings according to your preferences. If you found this tutorial helpful, make sure to check out our comprehensive WordPress security guide and recommended security plugins. Stay connected with us on Twitter and Facebook for more tips and updates, and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for additional WordPress video tutorials. Keep your email addresses secure and enjoy a spam-free WordPress experience!