Avoid, Shun, Thwart, Prevent, and then Filter Spam

Email is rapidly becoming the standard means of communication among businesses, associates, and even friends. While many people have now been using the internet and email for years, there are thousands of new users on the internet each day. With inexpensive web hosting, free email services, and the blog burst upon us, getting your own slice of the internet pie has never been easier.

Whether you're a seasoned professional looking for a refresher course, or you're new to the internet and email and want to start off right, here are some easy steps to follow to reduce the amount of spam you receive.

Don't choose an obvious email address. Spammers will generate lists of email addresses based on common names. A common list would be something like: nick@yahoo.com, nick1@yahoo.com, nick2@yahoo.com, etc. If you create an email account with less obvious combinations of your name plus some numbers, chances are better that you won't find your way onto one of these lists.

Treat your personal email address with care. Only give out your personal email address to close friends and family who you trust. Give your direct business email only to clients and other contacts you trust to only use your address for legitimate business purposes.

Use different accounts for different functions. Create different aliases with your business's domain name or create a few free accounts from free email servers like Hotmail, Yahoo!, Excite, etc. Use one account that you don't care about for posting to forums or discussion groups. Use another to subscribe to newsletters and newsgroups. When any of these addresses starts to get spammed too heavily, simply delete the account and switch to a different one.

Remove your email address from your website. Between blogs and cheap web space, it seems everyone has their own piece of cyberspace. Before you put a link to your email address on your site, remember that spammers have bots that harvest these addresses. They will even find addresses printed in plain text. Consider using a web-based form for communication from you website, or place your address as a gif or jpeg.

Do NOT open, respond to, or purchase from spam. Interacting with spam in any of these ways indicates to the spammer that not only is your address valid, it's also active. Do not respond with "unsubscribe" in the subject line, or click on any links to remove your name out of the database, as both of these are common ploys to confirm your email address. Remember, because sending email is so inexpensive, spamming can be profitable even if only a small percentage of people purchase what they're selling. Don't support what you're trying to stop.

Finally, Filter your incoming email using filtering software. Even if you guard your email address religiously, you'll likely still receive spam. Filtering software is usually inexpensive and effective, but there are some important features to consider with any filtering package:

? Make sure you can control what comes to your inbox and what gets deleted. The best programs create a spam folder for you to review before permanently deleting emails.

? The software should block images from incoming emails. Many jpegs in spam actually hide code that notifies the spammer when the email is viewed. Blocking images will not only keep offensive content off your screen but will also help prevent more spam in the future.

? Choose software that provides you with updates - as new spamming techniques are created and proliferated, filtering software should keep up.

While eliminating spam from coming to your email address is nigh unto impossible, following these simple steps will mean you'll have to spend less time deleting spam from your inbox, giving you more time for the important things of life ?- like reading this article.

Nick Smith is a client account specialist with 10x Marketing - More Visitors. More Buyers. More Revenue. Find more information about how to filter spam at ContentWatch, Inc.

---

Learn Simple Strategies That Will Stop Spammers From Bombarding Your Inbox!

Spam filter is the solution that most people resort when... Read More

What Is Spam?

If you've been around the interenet any length of time... Read More

What to Do to Avoid Getting Banned

How would you feel if you found a link on... Read More

What SPAM Means: Stupid People Annoying Me

English, German, Italian - It's All SPAM To MeHas anyone... Read More

Internet Tip of the Week: Information Overload

We receive so much information on the Internet, especially via... Read More

How to Write a Privacy Policy

A Privacy Policy can be defined as the policy under... Read More

All About Spam

Spam is annoying. Period. Why people would want to send... Read More

Which Spam Filter Is Best For You?

With the number of spam filtering solutions increasing each week... Read More

The War on Spam: Google Fights Back

Google is engaged in a war. It is a war... Read More

Email Spam and Phishing

It seems like the volume of email spam has doubled... Read More

Fight Spam and Fortify Your Web Site with RSS

RSS is the answer to the Spam epidemic of the... Read More

Do Not Spam

The temptation among internet marketers to SPAM is greater than... Read More

Spammer Stole My Email Address?

Do you get bounced, or rejected emails sent by someone... Read More

Phishing for an Identity

Phishing is rapidly becoming on the largest threats to your... Read More

Is Your Website Blacklisted?

A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of... Read More

Three Faces of SPAM

Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam... Read More

The Cybermagic of Whitelists

Before we start getting deep into the meat of this... Read More

The Anti Spam Challenge ? Minimizing False Positives

Email is the quintessential business communication tool, so when it... Read More

How To Stop Spam (Especially If You?re Already a Victim)

Spam. Those annoying, time-consuming emails that clog your Inbox and... Read More

How to Protect Your Email ID from Spammers?

You must be one of them experiencing a lot of... Read More

How Spammers Fool Whitelists - And How to Stop Them

Effectively stopping spam over the long-term requires much more than... Read More

The 4 Ws of Junk E-mail

Junk e-mail or spam has become the scourge of the... Read More

Take Back Control of Your Inbox: Eliminate Annoying and Potentially Harmful E-mails

Are you tired of spam stealing your time, your money,... Read More

Block Spam with An Easy Behavioral Change

E-mails now have a connection back to their servers. I... Read More

Your Dolphin E-mail Caught In Spam Tuna Net?

Let me ask a couple of questions:If (potential) customers sends... Read More

Spam Filters Explained

What do they do? How do they work? Which one... Read More

Challenge Response Spam Filters Explained

As the flood of spam increases end users are looking... Read More

Avoiding the Spam Trap: Get Your Message Delivered!

Your message is not being delivered.If you send emails to... Read More

Quickly Eliminate 100% of Your Junk Email

Why do so many people think I need to take... Read More

The Great Spam Scam: Five Strategies To Stop Brand and Revenue Robbery

Marketers usually think of anti-spam tactics as 'how to prevent'... Read More

Internet Tip of the Week: Cease and Desist

While we all admit that unsolicited commercial email is a... Read More

Wiki Reek-y Havoc

The Vandals are coming! And this time they're after your... Read More

Where Did The Word Spam Come From?

We've all become familiar with the term spam. It's become... Read More