Keep spam where it belongs - away from your in-box!

Fed up of the ever-growing amount of Spam that appears in your in-box? Well, here are fourteen extremely useful tips to help significantly reduce the amount you receive:

1. Do not use a 'catch all' account

It is quite common practice to use a "catch all" email address, i.e. one email that will receive everything@yourdomain.co.uk. This has the drawback that if a spammer sends to generic email addresses, you could receive the spam email a dozen times or more. To avoid this, set up individual mailboxes for all your email addresses, and you can then bounce unwanted junk emails.

2. Don't use simple email addresses

Try to avoid using simple email addresses such as fred@yourdomain.co.uk.  It's better to use a longer version such as fred.jones@yourdomain.co.uk.  This is because many spammers will be aware of your domain name due to your live website address i.e. www.yourdomain.co.uk.  They can then use a dictionary of names (there are lots freely available) to guess valid email addresses i.e. fred@yourdomain.co.uk

3. Make sure email addresses used on your website are encrypted

If you decide to use an email address such as sales@yourdomain.co.uk as a method of contact there are various ways of encrypting the address to stop spammers harvesting them, but still allow visitors to contact you.

4. Avoid listing email addresses on your website altogether

Better still; don't use an email address on your site at all!  There are other equally valid ways for people to contact you, such as a web form.

5. Use an email client like Microsoft Outlook 2003 which has an in-built junk mail filter

If your ISP includes a spam filter as part of their service there is no reason why you cannot also have a filter of your own.  Two filters are better than one!

6. Keep your email client software patched i.e. Microsoft Outlook 2003

Microsoft allows you to download free patches for its office suite which will then include new rules for its junk mail filter.

7. Try to make sure your ISP includes spam filtering on your email server

This should then allow you to delete the spam at source and stops you wasting your time downloading it to your machine.  Be careful that with this tool you don't end up deleting valid and important emails.  Make sure the spam filtering software also includes a 'white list' where you can enter valid customer email addresses which will then bypass the filter.

8. Don't reply to spam, ever!

By replying to spam all you are doing is confirming that this is a live address.  The spammer will then sell this address to other spammers out there.  Soon your inbox will be flooded with even more unwanted spam.

9. Don't click on the unsubscribe links

This is the same as replying, all you are doing is confirming a live address and you may well unsubscribe from this piece of junk, but then look forward to much more arriving in your in-box once the spammer sells on your address!

10. Use a disposable email addresses for forums and news groups

As with email addresses on your website, a spammer has software tools to harvest your address by crawling web pages.  By using disposable and unique addresses then, should you suffer an increase in Spam, you can simply remove that address from your system and use a different one.

Another method is to disguise your email address - for example, when posting you could use jozhn.smzith-removethez@yourzdomainz.co.uk the idea is that a computer program won't be able to read it but a human can.

11. Sign up on other sites with unique aliases

When you buy something online why not set up a unique alias on your email account?

By using this method should you subsequently get any unwanted spam:

1. you can stop it by cancelling the alias, and
2. you know where it originated.

For example, say you wanted to buy something from the SSI SHOP - an online shop selling a large range of electronic items.  You could set up an alias called ssishop@yourdomain.co.uk; sign in and make your purchase with this email address.  Then if you subsequently receive any spam you know where it originated, and more importantly, you could stop it by simply removing the alias.

12. Check the small print every time you sign up online

Make sure that during any sign up form you check to make sure that information will not be sent to third parties, if they do send it to third parties you should have an option to be removed from the list.

13. Use a white list and then tune up your spam filters

Most spam filters have a threshold figure that has to be reached before the software either deletes the email or marks it as spam.  This threshold could be reduced to help tag more messages but, of course, you now run the risk that legitimate emails will also be blocked.  If your spam software includes a 'white list' you could include address of your customers on the list so that their emails will by pass the filtering software.  You can now reduce your threshold and catch more spam.

14. Never buy anything advertised in SPAM

It only needs one person out of every ten thousand emails - maybe less - to buy something to make it profitable for the spammers.  If no one buys anything then the spammers will go out of business.  If you are still receiving spam today then it's because someone, somewhere is still buying from it!

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