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We can co various
things to keep spam to a minimum on the server side, however there
are responsibilities a domain and website owner have to ensure they
are doing there best to reduce spam from their end. Here are some
tips we have uncovered a long the way.
1. TRAINING YOUR
SPAM FILTERING VIA THE SERVER CONTROL PANEL
95% of spam problems is the result of not training your spam
filtering software within YOUR domain. The server itself has
it's own spam filtering software, however each individual domain has
control over their own settings. To train your spam filter, log into
your Control panel :
https://yourdomain.com:8443 from there, click on mail, click on
each email address, click on spam filter, you will see an icon
called "training" click on the icon. If you have email sitting on
your server (inbox) it will bring up a variety of emails, go through
the subject headings and place a checkbox by each one you consider
to be spam. If you go down the list and determine all of it is
"spam", putting a check mark in the box "subject" will place a check
box for all emails displayed. (Note, if you have a lot of emails
there it could take a few minutes for this process) once the check
boxes are checked click the link that says "this is spam". It is
recommended you do this about once per week for a few weeks and then
periodically as needed.
1. Re-directing
email / Forwarding Email. There are those that like their
yahoo account or maybe their ISP email website, however there is a
downside to using any web based email client. The more re-directs
and forwards you have setup, the more loops it takes for an email to
get to it's destination and thus increases the amount of spam
received on the server. If you like just accessing your mail all in
one place, you can achieve the same results by using a third party
pop3 email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express AND
get a better handle on Spam by using a spam filtering software.
Today most spam filters are included with your anti-virus software.
2. Don't setup a
catch-All email address. Have you ever received an email to an
email you know you don't have setup? For example if you have
bob@yourdomain.com setup but
you frequently receive emails to
Lucy@yourdomain.com or
viagra@yourdomain.com The
reason behind that is you most likely have a "catch all" email that
catches ALL mail to any prefix@ yourdomain.com
By default, in
November when we changed servers we removed all "catch-all" email
boxes and directed our server to "DISCARD" email to unknown
addresses. So an email sent to
viagra@yourdomain.com
went no where. We could have set the email to be "deleted"
automatically, however when that is done the spammer receives
notification that the email was rejected which causes them to keep
trying or utilize more advanced harvesting measures. With the
"discard" setting the spammer is completely unaware that you did not
receive their message. This setting is within the mail controls of
your control panel and we recommend you keep the default setting of
"discard" for this purpose.
3. When you receive
an email that you certainly know is spam, don't open it, just
delete it, spammers have sophisticated software which allows them to
see that the mail has been opened which of course gives them another
reason to keep spamming you. If you are uncertain about an email not
marked "spam" or think could be legit, and you open it, try not to
click on any links, just delete it as well. If you are running your
own anti-spam software (recommended) you can better train your
anti-spam software by telling it to "discard" future emails from
that sender.
4. Form Pages can
be deleted or re-created to make it more difficult for a spammer to
exploit the address it sends mail to. You may have a form page
on your site requesting additional information from clients or
potential clients, this is another open door to spammers who harvest
email addresses using the "script language" used in the HTML that
sends the forms data to your email address. There are a few
solutions. One is the obvious removal of the form completely,
however might not be practical if you rely on it for legitimate
reasons. The other option is to add a "CAPTCHA" to your form pages.
CAPTCHA is a
program that protects websites against bots by generating and
grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs
cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown
below, but current computer programs can't: You have probably seen
them on many websites where you must type in a series of letters,
numbers or even symbols in order to get your message through or
access a form or page. If you currently have a form on your page and
would like to add this feature to the form, I will add it free of
charge for current clients. Just
email me and ask me about
it.
5. Search
Engine Submissions - gateway to a LOT of spam! We all know that
in order for your website to be seen, it has to be sent out to the
search engines. What you might not know is that the search engines
require a working email address in order to spider your website. If
your website came with search engine submissions you will remember
that I asked you for a junk email address right? This is why. If you
have not setup a junk mail address, now is the time to do it. DO NOT
USE your domain email to do this. Use one of the free email services
such as Yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc. For example I have one setup as
KLJunk@yahoo.com I use this
email address ONLY for submitting my websites to the search engines.
It's a working email address so I am not in violation of submission
guidelines. Once a month I go into that account in Yahoo and I just
delete all and never have to read one word as I know it is all junk
mail. NONE of the search engines require confirmation your site was
submitted, as spammers will have you believe. Once your email
address is submitted with your site it's sold, and resold thousands
of time to spammers all across the globe. By using a junk email
address JUST for search engine submissions you need only devote a
few minutes per month to deleting the box (so that it does not
generate "Mailbox" full message to the search engines which could
disqualify your site from being indexed. If you are unsure if we
have a junk email address used for submitting your website,
email me and I will
let you know. If you know you don't have one setup, set one up and
email me with it to
include with your future submissions.
6.
Advanced Spam Configuration Settings
Additional Support
Documents
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