RobArt Email Guard

by Rob Art

Description

Keep your email addresses visible to customers, but harder for spam bots to collect.

Publishing an email address on your website makes it easy for customers to contact you. Unfortunately, automated email harvesters can also scan page content, collect addresses, and add them to spam lists.

RobArt Email Guard helps protect publicly displayed email addresses and mailto: links without replacing them with images, awkward “name [at] domain” text, or compulsory contact forms. Visitors can still click to email you, while common scraping methods have a much harder time finding an address in your page source.

Enable automatic protection for emails in your content, or use a shortcode when you want precise control over individual addresses. Choose between two free obfuscation methods, view discovered and protected emails in the admin area, and adjust link styling to fit your website.

Why choose RobArt Email Guard?

Protect email addresses from common harvesting bots — obscure the addresses and mailto: links shown on your website.
Keep email links clickable — genuine visitors can still open their email application from a link.
Automatic email protection — detect and protect addresses in posts and pages without manually updating each link.
Two free protection methods — choose HTML entity encoding or JavaScript hydration.
Precise shortcode control — protect individual addresses and customise their link text or protection method.
Protected Emails report — see discovered addresses, where they appear, and their protection status.
Flexible link styling — change colours, hover colours, underline styles and bold appearance without writing CSS.
Works on your own website — free email protection does not require a third-party scanning service.

Two ways to protect emails for free

1. HTML entity encoding

Transforms an email address and its mailto: link into HTML character entities. Browsers interpret these entities and display a working email link, while the raw markup is less straightforward for basic harvesting scripts to extract. No JavaScript is required.

2. JavaScript hydration

Leaves the email address out of the initial page source and recreates its clickable link in the visitor’s browser. This is a useful option when you want to make addresses less accessible to bots that collect only the original HTML.

You can choose a default protection method in settings and override it for individual shortcode links.

Automatic email protection — no shortcode required

Turn on automatic scanning and RobArt Email Guard identifies email addresses and mailto: links in post and page content and protects them as your pages are displayed. Existing content does not need to be rewritten to benefit from this feature.

For email links placed directly in theme templates or page-builder elements, the shortcode offers more direct control where it can be used.

Protect a specific email with a shortcode

Add a protected, clickable email link wherever WordPress processes shortcodes:

[raeg_secure_email address="hello@example.com"]

Use custom link text:

[raeg_secure_email address="hello@example.com" text="Email our team"]

Choose a protection method for one address:

[raeg_secure_email address="hello@example.com" method="js"]

The shortcode also supports method="encode". The method="reveal" option requires Pro.

See which email addresses are protected

The Protected Emails report helps you identify the addresses your site is displaying and protecting. It shows the email address, the location where it was encountered, and its status.

The reporting feature can record protected addresses seen in page-builder content, theme templates and other front-end output as those pages are viewed. Use Re-scan to refresh the report.

Make protected links match your design

Use your theme’s existing link appearance or configure link colour, hover colour, solid/dotted/dashed underline, and bold styling from Email Guard settings. The raeg-email CSS class is available for additional theme-level control.

Free features and Pro upgrade

Included in the free plugin:

HTML entity encoding
JavaScript hydration
Automatic email scanning and protection
[raeg_secure_email] shortcode
Protected Emails report and re-scan
Email link styling controls

Available in Pro:

Click to Reveal — an email address is retrieved from your own server when a visitor clicks, rather than appearing in the initial page source.
Reveal appearance options — use an inline link or compact pill, with custom button text.

Pro is optional; the free version includes both standard obfuscation methods and automatic protection.

What this plugin can and cannot stop

Email obfuscation is not a guarantee against every scraper. HTML entity encoding can be decoded, and browser-based bots can run JavaScript. Click to Reveal (Pro) adds an interaction step, but a sufficiently capable bot could still retrieve a revealed address. RobArt Email Guard is designed to reduce exposure to automated email harvesting, not to promise complete prevention of spam.

Uninstall

Deleting RobArt Email Guard through the Plugins screen removes its settings and stored options. Protection is applied when content is displayed, so uninstalling does not rewrite your stored content. No custom tables are left behind.

External Services

RobArt Email Guard does not send data to external services during normal free-plugin operation. Email protection happens on your own website.

Click to Reveal (Pro) contacts your own website’s WordPress admin-ajax endpoint to retrieve an address after visitor interaction. This request does not use a third-party provider.

For activated Pro licences, licence validation and update delivery contact the RobArt licence server at robart-illustration.eu when checking a licence or fetching a Pro update.

Installation

Install RobArt Email Guard from the WordPress Plugins screen, or upload the robart-email-guard folder to /wp-content/plugins/.
Activate the plugin from Plugins.
Open Email Guard Settings and choose HTML entity encoding or JavaScript hydration.
Enable automatic protection for email addresses in your content, if desired.
Optionally add [raeg_secure_email address="hello@example.com"] to display a protected link in a specific location.
Visit Protected Emails to review discovered addresses and their protection status.

Screenshots

Email Guard dashboard — overview of protection information and example email links.
Protection settings — choose a protection method, configure automatic scanning and adjust link styling.
Protected Emails report — review discovered email addresses, locations and protection status.

Faq

Will people still be able to click my email addresses?

Yes. Protected links are designed to work as regular mailto: links for visitors. The Pro Click-to-Reveal option produces the link when the visitor chooses to reveal it.

Do I need to replace every email address with a shortcode?

No. Automatic protection can handle addresses and mailto: links in your posts and pages. Shortcodes are useful for individually controlled links and certain theme or page-builder placements.

Which free protection method is best?

JavaScript hydration keeps the address out of the original HTML and is a sensible starting point for many sites. HTML entity encoding is an alternative when your links need to work without JavaScript. Neither is a complete defence against advanced scraping tools.

Does the plugin prevent all spam and bots?

No. It makes automated email collection more difficult, especially for simple source-scanning harvesters. It does not filter incoming email, block form spam, or guarantee that an address cannot be discovered.

Does it support page builders and theme templates?

The shortcode can be used wherever shortcodes are processed. Automatic protection handles post and page content, and the Protected Emails report can also record protected addresses encountered in theme templates and page-builder output. For elements that bypass normal content processing, use the shortcode where supported.

Can I customise the appearance of a protected link?

Yes. Set link and hover colours, underline style and bold appearance in plugin settings, or use your theme’s CSS with the raeg-email class.

Is Click to Reveal included in the free version?

No. Click to Reveal is a Pro feature. The free version includes HTML entity encoding and JavaScript hydration, along with automatic protection, the shortcode, reporting and styling.

Does the free version send my email addresses to an external service?

No. Standard protection operates on your own website without sending email addresses to a third-party service.

What happens if I uninstall the plugin?

The plugin removes its settings and stored options. Your original post and page content is not changed by the plugin, so removing it returns the displayed content to its normal unprotected state. No custom database tables are left behind.

Reviews

Changelog

0.0.8

Fixed: on the Protected Emails page, a location only linked to its editor if it had first been recorded while you were logged in. Places first seen by a visitor showed as plain text. Every page and post you can edit now links to its editor.
New readme: rewritten description, features and FAQ.

0.0.7

Security: internal hardening.

0.0.6

Security: internal hardening.

0.0.5

Protected Emails now lists every address the plugin actually protects, wherever it appears — theme templates (footers, headers), page-builder widgets, and Click-to-Reveal links (whose address is never written into the page) — not just addresses inside post and page content. Each is recorded as your pages are viewed on the front end; use Re-scan to refresh the list.
Fixed: addresses written as “mailto:” links are now listed as the clean email address (no “mailto:” prefix, URL parameters, or HTML-encoded characters), and bare “mailto:” addresses in text are picked up too.

0.0.4

Protected Emails now works with Elementor and other page builders — the report reads the same content your visitors see, so builder-only pages are covered.
Auto-scan no longer mistakes image filenames like “logo@2x.png” for email addresses.
Click-to-Reveal: new “Button label” option — keep the original link text (best for lists of named links) or use your own custom text.
Reveal links and pills now show an envelope icon.
Dashboard widget redesigned with live protection stats.
Various admin polish and housekeeping.

0.0.3

The Protected Emails page now updates automatically when you add, edit, or remove content — no manual re-scan needed.

0.0.2

First public release.
Three protection methods: HTML entity encoding, JavaScript hydration, and Click-to-Reveal (Pro).
Automatic scanning, the [raeg_secure_email] shortcode, and a Protected Emails report.
Link styling controls: colour, hover colour, underline style, and bold.
Full translation template included.

0.0.1

First release.