6 Ways To Avoid And Filter Spam

1 of the complaints I hear a lot about is the amount of email people get - especially the



unwanted kind.



Well I hate to be the barer of bad news but ...



If you're going to have an online business then receiving a large number of emails daily is



1 of the things you'd better be prepared for.



Signing up for ezines, reports, special deals, free giveaways, traffic exchanges,



membership sites, updates, etc bring in a lot of legitimate email. (Not to mention the



email you'll get from your subscribers.)



And after you've joined a few lists, had your site up for awhile and kept the same email



address for a couple of years you'll also notice a greater number of "not-so-legitimate"



email.



And we're not talking about an extra 5 or 10 -

We're talking about "Hundreds" of email messages to your inbox every day.



Now I can tell you that when you're a 1 person business having to clean out the "junk" and



wade through the good stuff can really eat up your time. Time you should be using to build



and grow your business.



So today I am going to offer you a few suggestions on how to save some time in handling all



that incoming email. I don't claim to be an expert at how to receive less "spam" or how to



get off of mailing lists or even on how to effectively filter all your incoming email. But



since I don't pay for any mail filtering services I've developed a few techniques to help



avoid some spam and filter some of it out of my inbox.



6 Ways To Avoid And Filter Spam



1. Never ever post your email address as a clickable link

on your or anyone's web page. Clickable email address

are gathered by email harvesters who then sell them to

anyone wants them. So unless you're really looking for

dates, body part enlargement pills, a loan or cashing

in on someone's hidden money in some foreign country

I'd recommend you not post your email address as a

clickable link. Instead, encrypt your email address.



2. When you identify an email message as spam don't click

any of the links it contains - not even the unsubscribe

link! While a lot of spam does not contain an unsubscribe

link, much of it does appear to have 1. The problems with

clicking the links are: 1) It may or may not unsubscribe

you from that list (since they sent you unsolicited email

you can't trust them to unsubscribe you) and 2) It

validates your email address as a good address and puts

you on a more expensive list to be sold. So instead of

getting less unwanted email you'll probably start getting

more.



3. When you create your contact information for your site

use something other than "admin" or "webmaster" as your

name in your email address. Because these names are

commonly used many lists are created by gathering domain

names and then attaching "admin@" or "webmaster@".



4. Most web hosts allow you multiple inboxes and have 1

already set up for your use. The 1 that's already created

is your default inbox and will receive all the email sent

to your domain - no matter what name is used. If your site

allows you to have more than 1 inbox create another inbox

for your contact information email address. Then all your

legitimate email will go to that inbox. When you check your

default email inbox you may find that your site is receiving

a lot of unwanted messages you'll have to delete it but you

don't need to read it.



5. Try using the built in spam filters for the mail service

you're using. Recently I switched to Outlook 2003 and it has

many new features to block junk e-mail (spam). The most

notable feature is Microsoft's Junk E-Mail Filter. There are

5 key features in Outlook® 2003 to help you combat spam:

Junk E-Mail Filter

Safe Senders List

Safe Recipients Lists

Blocked Senders List

AutoUpdate

I keep my filter set to low so the messages identified as

Junk will be saved in the Junk Folder. That way I can save

the legitimate ones before I delete the rest. And every time

I identify a valid email I add it to the "Safe Senders List."

While this filter is not 100% effective it does identify

between 95% - 98% of the junk and move it out of my inbox.

You can find directions on how to use Outlook 2003 on a

microsoft - office - outlook page.

(Yahoo and other mail services also provide spam filters.

Try turning it on for a week and see if it will work for you.)



6. Whether or not you use the spam filter provided by the mail

program you're using you will still want to set up some

personal mail rules for directing certain messages to

specified folders. Since I get a lot of unwanted email to my

web site's default email inbox I've set up a rule to send it

all to my deleted email folder. To do this I have it catch

all email to my site "friendswhocare.us" and then defined

the exceptions (the valid email names I don't want deleted).

And of course you can set up rules to send mail from specific

senders to a special folder rather than have them deleted.

(You'll still have to add these senders to your "Save Senders

List" because the junk/spam filters usually run before your

rules.)



While the above suggestions will keep most of you unwanted email from getting to your



inbox, some will still make it through. Also you will still have to clean out your Junk or



Bulk folders. So here are a couple of shortcuts on how to delete email quickly.



2 Shortcuts for Deleting Email (Outlook)



1. If you have a lot of unwanted messages grouped together

then you can delete them all at once by:



* Click on the 1st message to be deleted

* Hold the Shift key down and

* Click the last message to be deleted



All the messages - 1st, last and all those in between

should be highlighted so when you click the delete

button they will all be gone.



2. If your unwanted email is scattered throughout your

inbox you can use the Ctrl key.



* Click on the 1st message to be deleted

* Hold down the Ctrl key and

* Click on each of the messages you want deleted



All the messages you have clicked on should now be

highlighted and you can delete them all by clicking

the delete button.



Yahoo and other email services usually have you check

a box to mark messages you want deleted. Look around

and somewhere they usually provide a place where you

can "check all." If most of your messages are to be

deleted then "check all" and uncheck those you don't

want deleted before you click the delete button.



When you're first starting you may not be getting much email and be tempted to look at some



of the unsolicited email. But after you've been doing business online for awhile you'll



discover that not only do you not have time to look at it but that it also steals much of



your precious online time. So take some steps to avoid getting spam and learn to use your



email program. You'll be glad you did.



To Your Success,

Susan Carroll





-------------------

Susan has been helping people with their online marketing for more than 4 years. You're



invited to join her free membership site at:

http://www.friendswhocare.us/join.htm

where she gives many free tools and resources including SpamStop to encrypt your email



address.



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