Stop spam at the source
Are you finding tons of spam in your inbox whenever you get your mail? I am going to explain to you some useful tips to aid in helping you tame your spam problem. It’s a fact that we all receive spam e-mails. I’m going to give you some free alternatives to reduce the amount of spam you receive. But first I think it is important to understand exactly how your e-mail address is obtained by spammers.
Many times we go to web sites that offer something if you sign up. But in order to sign up you have to give up your email address. Now, many sites respect your privacy and keep your email address confidential. There are also many sites on the internet that sell your email address. The hard part is knowing who you can trust and is or is not going to sell your e-mail address. You never know who you can trust these days. I will touch on that subject shortly and give you a way to track who you can trust. If you own a website your email address that is used for your contact information is available by simple doing a whois lookup of your website. Most whois services attempt to block this information from being available but a savvy spammer can always get around this. Another method spammers use is called harvesting. They send out an email harvesting spider onto the web to obtain as many email address as they can from websites. If you post on message boards and your email address is visible, you can pretty much assume this is how and why you receive spam. These are just a few of the most common methods that spammers use.
So how exactly do I deal with my spam issue right now? Consider this, open a free email acct and only use it for signing up to websites that request your email to obtain information on what ever it is you want to receive. If you already have a free email account open another one and notify all your personal contacts of your new email address. And never give your new address out to anybody for any reason other than for personal contact. You should make an effort to keep your personal e-mails personal. For example, only give your personal email to family members, friends, and business colleagues. These are people you know will not sell your information and only use it to contact you personally. Use your existing free email address for signing up to websites or for requesting information.
Here are some excellent reasons to have a free email account or to open another one. If you have a web site DO NOT put your e-mail address on the web site in a link format. Instead use an image of a free e-mail address and do not link the e-mail address to the picture. Remember, These spammers use e-mail harvesting programs to search the Web for email addresses. Another way to fight spam is to use a contact form on your web site. And make sure the form you use does not have your e-mail address in the actual page the person is filling out. If your e-mail address is in this page and will be detected by these email harvesting programs used by spammers. Even if it is not visible on the website it is still visible to email harvesting programs. For a small fee many webmasters including myself can set your website up with a contact form to eliminate your email address from being visible on your website to email harvesters.
If you own and manage domains never use a personal email address for the technical contact, administrative contact, registrant contact, and the billing contact. Unless of course you have domain privacy enabled. Most registrars can set this up for a small fee. If you do not have that option then use a free e-mail account to manage this information. Just do a search on the world wide web with your favorite search engine for “free email” and you’ll find hundreds of web sites that offer free email service. Some of the most popular ones are Hotmail, Hotpop and Yahoo. The list goes on and on. These days most free email services have spam blocking in place but they don’t always seem to work the greatest at times. Spammers are sly and you have to beat them at their own game.
I am going to touch on what I mentioned above. Another great free service is called Spam Gourmet. This web based service in it’s self is absolutely remarkable. Spam Gourmet lets you set up special email addresses that expire after so many emails have been received. You just enter the number of emails you wish to receive from said site or person using a special email format provided to you by Spam Gourmet. Once you set this up that is all you will receive from that site. Here is an example, say your Spam Gourmet username is johndoe your email format would be thesiteorperson.x.johndoe@spamgourmet.com . The first part, thesiteorperson is an identifier so you know where the mail is coming from. This identifier should be unique and only used once. The x indicates how many emails you are going to allow from thesiteorperson. You can set it to 1-20. All other mail sent after your predetermined number has been exceeded is simple blocked and sent to the huge cyber space garbage bin. You can visit Spam Gourmet on the web at http://www.spamgourmet.com for more information and to set up your free spam gourmet account.
Fighting this war on spam may seem like an endless task. However, if you educate yourself and take precautions you can beat these spammers and win this war on spammers.
Many times we go to web sites that offer something if you sign up. But in order to sign up you have to give up your email address. Now, many sites respect your privacy and keep your email address confidential. There are also many sites on the internet that sell your email address. The hard part is knowing who you can trust and is or is not going to sell your e-mail address. You never know who you can trust these days. I will touch on that subject shortly and give you a way to track who you can trust. If you own a website your email address that is used for your contact information is available by simple doing a whois lookup of your website. Most whois services attempt to block this information from being available but a savvy spammer can always get around this. Another method spammers use is called harvesting. They send out an email harvesting spider onto the web to obtain as many email address as they can from websites. If you post on message boards and your email address is visible, you can pretty much assume this is how and why you receive spam. These are just a few of the most common methods that spammers use.
So how exactly do I deal with my spam issue right now? Consider this, open a free email acct and only use it for signing up to websites that request your email to obtain information on what ever it is you want to receive. If you already have a free email account open another one and notify all your personal contacts of your new email address. And never give your new address out to anybody for any reason other than for personal contact. You should make an effort to keep your personal e-mails personal. For example, only give your personal email to family members, friends, and business colleagues. These are people you know will not sell your information and only use it to contact you personally. Use your existing free email address for signing up to websites or for requesting information.
Here are some excellent reasons to have a free email account or to open another one. If you have a web site DO NOT put your e-mail address on the web site in a link format. Instead use an image of a free e-mail address and do not link the e-mail address to the picture. Remember, These spammers use e-mail harvesting programs to search the Web for email addresses. Another way to fight spam is to use a contact form on your web site. And make sure the form you use does not have your e-mail address in the actual page the person is filling out. If your e-mail address is in this page and will be detected by these email harvesting programs used by spammers. Even if it is not visible on the website it is still visible to email harvesting programs. For a small fee many webmasters including myself can set your website up with a contact form to eliminate your email address from being visible on your website to email harvesters.
If you own and manage domains never use a personal email address for the technical contact, administrative contact, registrant contact, and the billing contact. Unless of course you have domain privacy enabled. Most registrars can set this up for a small fee. If you do not have that option then use a free e-mail account to manage this information. Just do a search on the world wide web with your favorite search engine for “free email” and you’ll find hundreds of web sites that offer free email service. Some of the most popular ones are Hotmail, Hotpop and Yahoo. The list goes on and on. These days most free email services have spam blocking in place but they don’t always seem to work the greatest at times. Spammers are sly and you have to beat them at their own game.
I am going to touch on what I mentioned above. Another great free service is called Spam Gourmet. This web based service in it’s self is absolutely remarkable. Spam Gourmet lets you set up special email addresses that expire after so many emails have been received. You just enter the number of emails you wish to receive from said site or person using a special email format provided to you by Spam Gourmet. Once you set this up that is all you will receive from that site. Here is an example, say your Spam Gourmet username is johndoe your email format would be thesiteorperson.x.johndoe@spamgourmet.com . The first part, thesiteorperson is an identifier so you know where the mail is coming from. This identifier should be unique and only used once. The x indicates how many emails you are going to allow from thesiteorperson. You can set it to 1-20. All other mail sent after your predetermined number has been exceeded is simple blocked and sent to the huge cyber space garbage bin. You can visit Spam Gourmet on the web at http://www.spamgourmet.com for more information and to set up your free spam gourmet account.
Fighting this war on spam may seem like an endless task. However, if you educate yourself and take precautions you can beat these spammers and win this war on spammers.
