Can meta descriptions and og descriptions be seen by Spam bots?

  • Resolved Motionous

    (@motionous)


    5 years, 8 months ago

    Dear Yoast,
    When inspecting some pages source code, I see that email addresses which have been written in the page excerpts normally appear in the following html lines:

    <meta name=”description” content= …

    <meta property=”og:description” content= …

    <meta name=”twitter:description” content= …

    As I just implemented “Email Address Encoder” plugin with the purpose of encrypting such email adresses, I am wondering if providing such information in the page source code is totaly safe regarding Spam bots.

    Are Spam bots able to retrieve email adresses from Meta & Open Graph descriptions?

    This subject is so uncovered so I hope the answer is No and that I am just asking some silly question! :-p

    Thanks by advance!

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Motionous.
    • This topic was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Motionous.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support Michael Tiña

    (@mikes41720)

    5 years, 8 months ago

    We’re not familiar with the ‘Email Address Encoder’ plugin so we can’t be sure if this is what’s causing the issue.

    You might want to check the meta description, open graph tags, and Twitter tags that you’ve set with the Yoast SEO plugin and see if the output is as expected.

    Thread Starter Motionous

    (@motionous)

    5 years, 8 months ago

    Thank you Micheal,
    So this is an issue, right?
    Are you saying that these email addresses should be encrypted by Yoast by default?

    Looks like ‘Email Address Encoder’ plugin author may have the same opinion, at least regarding the Pro version of YOAST:

    Till Krüss
    (@tillkruess)
    19 hours, 54 minutes ago
    Mhh, that’s hard to know. I’m working on a PRO version of this plugin that encodes email addresses in meta tags.

    (https://wordpress.org/support/topic/can-meta-descriptions-and-og-descriptions-be-seen-by-spam-bots/)

    When deactivating Email Address Encoder, the emails adresses are still visible in theses 3 metas.

    THX!

    Plugin Support devnihil

    (@devnihil)

    5 years, 8 months ago

    Yoast is not capable of encrypting email addresses that you use in the meta description. If you are concerned that a spam bot may harvest an email address you used in your meta description we would recommend not including the email there.

    Wherease many spam bots are looking for mailto: tags to find email addresses, we unfortunately cannot anticipate what amount of page data a bot uses to find new email addresses.

    Thread Starter Motionous

    (@motionous)

    5 years, 8 months ago

    Thank you devnihil,
    It is much clearer now 🙂

    The “mailto” tag IS the major risk factor, even if writing “***@***.**” in meta descriptions isn’t 100% safe.

    That makes a lot of sense.

    Thanks for the fast support.
    Have a nice day!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • The topic ‘Can meta descriptions and og descriptions be seen by Spam bots?’ is closed to new replies.