These simple tips to combat spam may not save your life, but they’ll probably save your sanity. If spam threatens to overwhelm your inbox…if half of your time online seems spent dealing with ads for drugs you don’t want to take and body parts you don’t own…it’s time to do something.
Five Simple Tips to Combat Spam
Unlike regular junk mail that arrives via your friendly mail carrier, spam ends up costing YOU time and money to deal with. It’s not as easy as throwing it into the recycle bin and forgetting about it. Fortunately, however, there are several steps you can take to combat the daily march of spam into your inbox.
Tip 1: Use disposable email addresses for questionable websites or forms.
Spammers often purchase email lists from companies or individuals who set up websites or landing pages to attract users into divulging their email addresses. Disposable email addresses can be used once and then discarded. They forward email into your inbox but you can deactivate them without harming your formal email address. This stops spam in its tracks. Disposable email addresses are slightly inconvenient to use but are usually offered at no charge by several companies.
Tip 2: Do not post your email address online.
Posting your full email address online is like leaving a juicy steak on a plate on the floor of your kitchen alone with your dog and expecting it to be there when you return. For almost every canine in the world, the temptation is too great. Spammers are also tempted by the juicy steak of an unprotected email address left on a website. Use hyperlinks to cloak your website, since spammers love to run automated programs to harvest email addresses from the internet.
Tip 3: Install good spam filtering software.
Many email programs come with spam filters, but you can also purchase and install an additional filter to block unwanted emails. Talk to Web Design of Palm Beach about installing safeguards against spam in your company’s email account to decrease unwanted messages.
Tip 4: Opt out quickly from services that require an email address.
Be suspicious of websites that require you to divulge an email address in order to access their content. While some are legitimate, many are simply bait to attract suckers who divulge their email addresses for the use of spammers worldwide. If you must give out your email address, unsubscribe from any communications from the site owner as quickly as possible.
Tip 5: Don’t answer a spam email.
We’ve all been tempted to fire back a tart reply to an unsolicited email. Unfortunately, such a response tends to get our emails trapped in the spammer’s filter, and the number of spam emails arriving in your inbox may actually grow, rather than shrink. Sending threats, angry letters, or demands to remove you from an email list will only help spammers, not you. Instead, use Tip 4 and unsubscribe, or install software to block future emails from that domain or ISP.
Combating spam isn’t easy, and you may never have a completely “spam free” email experience. But with a good spam filter and a few tricks of the trade, you can greatly reduce the quantity of the unsolicited emails arriving in your inbox.
Getting slammed with spam? Contact Web Design of Palm Beach for help. We can help you combat spam, fix website problems or build a shiny new site for you. Hosting, web design and consulting available. Call us at 561.262.5886.