Protect Your Email from SPAM Bots

One of the easiest ways for your email to get snatched up by a SPAM bot is to have it on your website. Still, many businesses these days fall into the trap and then wonder why they are getting 15-20 SPAM emails a day. Fortunately, there is a quick fix that will allow you to have your email on your website, but in a way that the SPAM bots cannot recognize.

The way to do this is to create an image file of your email address. SPAM bots are designed to skim through text and code to find email addresses, but they cannot understand an image as it is referenced in the code by it's path. The only thing that is important to remember though is while the image is not decipherable by the SPAM bot, it's alt tag may be. For those that are not familiar with the alt tag, it is what will show up if the image does not load so the user still has a description of the image. Please don't take the time to implement this method if you are just going to make the alt tag your email address. My suggestion is make it something like "joesemail" or something like that. This way users who cannot view the image know what it is but the SPAM bots cannot pick up on it.

Using methods such as these are simple yet effective ways to better protect yourself from getting picked up by SPAM bots. Please know though that this is only one way to protect yourself and in order to be fully protected you need to employ multiple methods that will most likely affect how you use the internet in general. As always. be careful where and what you click!

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Do Spammers Have Souls?

The question in the title of this article may seem strange, but it's one that is asked very frequently on a number of levels. For one thing, do they have souls can mean are spammers people or machines? It can also refer to the question often asked about whether they're aware of the sheer frustration they cause. Thirdly, and perhaps most commonly, people wonder if the people who write these irritating emails are actually demons belched up from the underworld of fire and brimstone. Read on to find the answer to each of these questions that have become so common in today's society.

Spam is actually a result of the work of both human and machine. In that sense, spammers do indeed have a soul - on the human side of things. It is people who choose to utilize this form of marketing and apply the various methods that will bring in the largest list of email addresses possible. Here is where the soulless segment comes in, since a great deal of the collection of email address has to do with sending out a crawler to pick up as many emails as possible from where they are listed on thousands upon thousands of websites across the world wide web.

Many people ask if spammers are aware of the trouble and grief they cause to the recipients of their messages. The majority of them are well aware of what they are doing. They are not idealistic individuals who believe that they are performing a service by sending out a sales email to as many people as possible. Instead, they're people who simply don't care about the emotional reaction of the recipients and instead want to reach as many people as possible because some of them will choose to follow the provided link and make a purchase - the goal of the entire scheme.

Lastly, though it may be easy to believe that spammers are demons or some other form of lowly soulless creature...but it must be said that they are simply regular people with a lower ethical standard for making a buck. Of course, they do this under the assumption that they can remain anonymous, which is not always the case when you use a good quality reverse email search site.

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Guilty Until Proven Innocent, Getting Emails Blocked

These spam words are often the same words and phrases often used when talking to prospective clients. However, your prospect's email pre-set spam filter blocked it. You were not sending spam. Instead, you were using a word or words, that many email spammers use.

A DANGER FOR SALES PEOPLE You tend to send a quantity of the same email message out to a group of clients. This may end you up on a blacklist; even through it is no intentional fault of your own. You are merely attempting to follow the procedures for responsible opt-in email marketing. Sometimes it is smart to send yourself a copy of your sales email, before to send a quantity out. Nevertheless, do not assume that because it makes it through your internet service provider's spam filter, it will get by other ISP spam filters.

Email Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email, also call UBE. If you find someone's email address on an internet site, a web page, or a mailing list, you DO NO have consent to use it. If in turn you purchased it, traded for it, or received the emails as a gift, you DO NOT have consent. Bulk refers to sending out a similar message in over 200 emails a day. If you do this you are a spammer.

The only way sure way to prevent this is to either not use the word below or substitute it with another word or phrase so your sales email will make its way through. NEVER use any of these words in your subject line of your sales message. Some spam filters may let a few of them slip by in the body of the email.

COMMON SPAM WORDS LIST, INCLUDING PHRASES

1. 4U 2. Act Now. 3. Additional income 4. All new 5. Amazing 6. Apply Online 7 . Be your own boss 8. Big bucks 9. Call free 10. Call now 11. Cash 12. Cash bonus 13. Collect 14. Compare rates 15. Congratulations 16. Dear email 17. Dear friend 18. Direct marketing 19. Do it today 20. Don't delete 21. Double your sales 22. Easy Sales 23. Email marketing 24. Expect to earn 25. Fantastic deal 26. Financial freedom 27. For free 28. For instant access 29. Free! 30. Free access 31. Free consultation 32. Free investment 33. Free money 34. Free offer 35. Free preview 36. Free quote 37. Free sample 38. Get paid 39. Get started now 40. Get it now 41. Gift certificate 42. Great offer 43. Guarantee 44. Guaranteed offer 45. Hidden assets 46. Increase sales 47. Increase traffic 48. Information you requested 49. Insurance 50. Investment decision 51. Limited time only 52. Mail in order form 53. Marketing solutions 54. Million dollars 55. Money making 56. More Internet traffic 57. Name brand 58. No catch 59. No cost 60. No credit check 61. No gimmick 62. No investment 63. No medical exams 64. No obligation 65. No selling 66. No strings attached 67. Not intended 68. Offer! 69. Offer expires 70. Once in lifetime 71. One time 72. Opportunity 73. Opt in 74. Outstanding values 75. Please read 76. Potential earnings 77. Print out and fax 78. Profits 79. Promise You 80. Pure profit 81. Real thing 82. Satisfaction guaranteed 83. See for yourself 84. Serious cash 85. Stop 86. Stops 87. Subscribe 88. Supplies are limited 89. Take action now 90. The best rates 91. This is not spam 92. Time Limited 93. Unlimited 94. You have been selected 95. Visit our web site 96. We hate spam 97. What are you waiting for? 98. Winner 99. Winning 100. Your income

With the increase in spam, protection has come increasingly sophisticated to guard against emails. Almost all Internet Service Providers (ISP's) use these email blockers. This is a problem though when trying to send your email sales message. There is no doubt that this software blocks out spam. Not in the sales person's favor, it can block legitimate emails as well. Knowing the key list of spam words can help prevent non-delivery problems. It can also keep you from unfairly tagged as being a spammer.

Small businesses are often the hardest hit by increasingly strict messages intended stop spam. Some industry insiders feel the bigger problems can be caused by trying to control the collateral damage caused by trying to get rid of it. Try to tell your ISP that you are unjustly being singled you and are innocent is difficult to get a response. Often it can be a periods of days or weeks, and even then all your emails are going to be watched like a hawk. The ISP's can fix or reverse the problem in their own due time. Meanwhile if you are blocked,. your emails are almost completely shut down.

CAUTION ON BUYING EMAIL NAMES Nor do not consider using Commercial Emailers to bypass your Internet Service Provider. These professional bulk email blasters, try to find every loophole possible to get pass the spam blocking guards. They are the bad boys, rated at producing 99% of today's spam. As soon as when way is shut down, another is opened up. Be careful when purchasing an email blasting list for spamming. Much of the list was never what the recipient requested to begin with. Lists of responders are collected and added to a list you ordered that they should not be on. The email blaster is only hoping that you get enough response so that you will be happy with the quantity of response. Therefore do not be surprising if the email blasting company adds phony responders (paid to act interested and respond to your request). Buyer beware.

For more articles to read on spam, marketing, recruiting, or increasing sales, there are plenty. Visit http://www.agentsinsurancemarketing.com Author, Don Yerke has over 200 articles published through out the internet.

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Free Spam Blocker - A Review of Cactus Spam Filter

The amount of spam being sent is on the rise. Unsolicited email now accounts for over 50% of email traffic. There are steps that you can take to cut down on the volume that you receive. The last line of defense is to have a personal spam filter on your computer. There are a number of filtering solutions, although most come at a cost. One of the free pieces of software is called Cactus Spam Filter. Here's our review.

The product is easy to download and to install. In fact that is one of the best things about the product - ease of use. Don't be worried that you are going to have to read through another massive manual to get the thing up and running. Refreshingly, the instructions are only one page long.

Once you have set up the software, any messages that it suspects are spam are tagged. This tag is a message that is added to the subject line such as "CACTUS SPAM". It is then a fairly simple task to create a new folder in Outlook and set up a rule that says move all emails containing the words "CACTUS SPAM" in the subject to the new spam folder.

You can then periodically check your spam folder to make sure that the software hasn't tagged any emails from your friends by mistake. Once you've made sure there are no 'false positives', you can delete the remaining spam. The beauty of this system is that you ultimately make the decision to delete which emails. The system cannot delete anything for you; it therefore can't delete anything by mistake.

The software also has a 'training' feature so the more you use it the more it gets used to the type of emails that you mark as spam. This makes it more effective at detecting junk emails in the future.

For a free piece of software, Cactus Spam Filter works very well. It is easy to install and simple to use. What more could you expect?

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Should You Be Worried About Spambots?

Spambots are automated software programs that roam the Internet looking for email addresses. They then gather them into a database that is used to blast junk emails to. Should you be worried about Spambots? After somebody published my email address on the web I was inundated with spam. I eventually had to resort to changing my email address. I'm now much more careful as to who I give my address to.

Spambots are able to operate because email addresses have a familiar presentation. They simply read pages on the web and search the code looking for addresses around an "@" symbol. There are also snippets of HTML code that bots can find such as "mailto". It doesn't matter whether these are found on webpages, chatrooms or on discussion forums; the spambot is able to use it.

There are a number of ways of trying to fool theses pieces of software. You could use an image with your email address or replace the "@" symbol with an (AT). Both of these mean that your link will no longer be clickable and open up the user's email client. Instead they will have to manually type in the email address.

A better solution is to use a contact form on your website rather than an email link. The form contents can be delivered to your email address, but it is a undetectable to spambots.

A more recent trend is the rise of Spambots that leave junk comments on forums and blogs. This is done to either promote a certain product or to simply leave links pointing back to a site. This second scenario can be useful to boost search engine rankings. The most up to date bots can even read the CAPTCHAS - those mangled letters that are meant to tell whether the form is being filled by a human or robot.

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How Do Spammers Find My Email Address?

Spammers, as telemarketers do a phone number, get your e-mail in two major ways, both of which you have some control over. The first way that spammers get your personal information is through public and private directories from a variety of sources, including e-mail address lookups. The other is through previous business relationships.

Just as there are directories for phone numbers, there are also lists of e-mail addresses. There are public directories that search web based and government servers, as well as the more common private directories maintained by individual servers. Spammers can access private directories using e-mail address lookup sites, but you can also use these services to help protect yourself from unsolicited e-mails by tracing a spammer's e-mail address. While an e-mail address lookup searches for e-mail address, a reverse e-mail search provides the name and server information to which an account is registered.

Your number gets added to directories in a number of ways, but like phone numbers, you can ask for your e-mail to remain unlisted. Simply contacting your e-mail service provider should make you feel more secure about spammers and how they get your number. Of course, spammers won't stop bothering you if you simply request an unpublished e-mail, because they can still get your e-mail in another way, through legitimate business relationships initiated by you. This means anytime you give your e-mail to someone, be that a business, a social networking site friend, or simply a random website, you are taking the risk that this is a source spammers don't use for e-mail addresses.

While you may not be able to completely prevent spammers from getting your e-mail, you can take action against particularly annoying unethical groups. A reverse email search allows you to trace a spam message back to e-mail server from which it was originally sent.

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