Protect Yourself from Spam
Email has forever changed the way in which we communicate. Unfortunately, keeping up with the amount of Spam can be frustrating and time consuming. Although there is no easy solution, the following tips can help you fight the Spam arms race.
Encode your email on your website
Displaying your email on your website is a sure way to guarantee unsolicited emails for years to come. The reason for this is because Email Harvesting Robots (aka spambots) crawl webpages and search for Mailto tags. Once they have found your email it gets passed around to other spammers. Several website have tried to use creative approaches such as info at your company name dot com. While this may fool spambots this method fails to provide your audience with a clickable email link.
A better approach is to “encode” your email. We’ve been using Automatic Lab’s Email Address Encoder successfully for many of our clients. Simply fill out the form and the email is encoded for you. Best of all, the tool is free.
Create alternative emails
In order to reduce the amount of Spam, only use your business email for business purposes and communication with close friends. When signing up for a newsletter, registering a domain name or filling out a contact form, use a hotmail or gmail address. These are very easy to set up and can be checked once in a while.
Read privacy policies
Before signing up to a newsletter or submitting your email to a website, read their privacy policy carefully. If the website does not have a privacy policy, don’t give them your email.
Do not reply to spammers
Many spam emails provide you with a link which allows you to unsubscribe. Replying to spammers only confirms that your email is real and results in more email.
Don’t buy products from Spammers
A recent report from eMarketer states that 11% of people buy their products from spammers. The people who claim to hate spam are the ones supporting that practice and buying from them.
Our word of advice is the following. Don’t be fooled by spammers and do not correspond or purchase their bargains. If spam doesn’t work, it will stop.