I have some phone numbers that keep getting automated phone calls from being extracted from a web page. Is there a way I can print a number to a page while still maintaining the ability to select it but keep those sticky fingered robots off?
Thanks,
Phoned OUT!
Phone Number Harvesting Protection
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shawngoldw
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Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
look up robots.txt
That should help
That should help
Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
Thank you for your help but unfortunately the robots I am dealing with will not obey the rules set by robots.txt
"In theory yes, in practice, no. If the bad robot obeys /robots.txt, and you know the name it scans for in the User-Agent field. then you can create a section in your /robotst.txt to exclude it specifically. But almost all bad robots ignore /robots.txt, making that pointless."
Any more ideas?
thanks
"In theory yes, in practice, no. If the bad robot obeys /robots.txt, and you know the name it scans for in the User-Agent field. then you can create a section in your /robotst.txt to exclude it specifically. But almost all bad robots ignore /robots.txt, making that pointless."
Any more ideas?
thanks
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shawngoldw
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Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
very true, I hadn't completely thought through your problem
what if you do some sort of weird formatting? Like put the phone number in 3 seperate divs?
then style them to be inline with 0 padding and whatnot so it still looks normal. Maybe there's something simpler, but that could help?
what if you do some sort of weird formatting? Like put the phone number in 3 seperate divs?
Code: Select all
<div>(123)</div><div>456</div> <div>7890</div>
- John Cartwright
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Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
When displaying sensitive information such as emails or phone #s, where scrapping is potentially an issue, I have always generated an image with GD. Whilst not bullet proof (lookup captchas), it will surely stop 99.99% of the bots out there.
Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
Hey thank you both for your help. If I generate an image, will the number still be able to be selected? I guess this might be asking too much. I will try the image.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Re: Phone Number Harvesting Protection
Bots are stupid. Just use javascript to display the number, or muck it up like this:
Code: Select all
88<b style="display: none;">092390</b>8-555-12<b style="display: none;">092390</b>12