Spam is probable the most annoying thing to any webmaster. Once a site is online and running, it can be bombarded by spam within days. It doesn’t matter if any email address was submitted to any online form. Bots will go out searching for email address located on web sites, along with randomly email address at the domain name. For instance “yourname@domain.com” can be a common email address used. There are a few key things that can be done to help combat spam and probable reduce it to almost nothing.

Alternate Email Address

When submitting site information to search engines, link submitters, news groups, or newsletters. Be sure to use an alternate email address, make sure the email address can be used to receive spam and real email. Most free email providers are good for such things. They are very good at sifting through the spam and legit emails and will work perfect for an alternate email address.

Alternate email address is probable the best way to combat spam. If used from the start of a new site, the site will more then likely not receive any spam at all. Other forms of spam will start to hit the domain name though. So be sure to prevent them from happening, one of the best ways is to not post any email address on the site or use java to mask the email address.

Java & Email Address

Java is probable the most effective way to reduce the amount of spam bot emails. Spam bots are small programs that work like a spider bot for search engines, as they go out to different sites and gather email address, then move onto other sites that the first site links to. They will then use the gathered email address to email spam.

Below is an example of a java script to use for email address instead of the normal HTML code.

HTML Code:

<a href=”mailto:yourname@domain.com”>Your Name</a>

Java Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write("<a href=" + "mail" + "to:" + "yourname" + "@" + "domain.com" + ">" + "Displayed Text Here!" + "</a>")
//-->
</script>

The code above should be used on all email address displayed within a site. This will confuse the spam bots and they will not be able to gather the email address. This method is probable the most effective in reducing the amount of spam a site receives.

Email Forwarding
Another method for combating spam is to setup email forwarders. If an alternate address wasn’t used, but other email address at a URL was an email forwarder will work great. In an earlier article I explained how to add rules out Outlook Express. By setting up a specific email address; spam@domain.com, a user can add a rule to delete any email sent to this address automatically. An email forwarder can be used to forward old email address, non existent, or spam type address directly to the “spam@domain.com” address.

Spam Filters

A very common way to remove or get rid of existing spam is to use spam filters. These can be programs that work with a users existing email client, or on a server itself. If a server is running cPanel, then Spam Assassin is already installed and can be activated very easily.

Activate Spam Assassin:

1: Login to cPanel
2: Go to the Mail sections
3: Go to Spam Assassin
4: Click on “Enable Spam Assassin”

That’s it; Spam Assassin should now be operational and will now filter incoming email on a domain name. This is another very good way to reduce the amount of spam. Most spam includes images that a user downloads without knowledge once the message is opened. This lets the sender know that the email address is legit and has a responder on the other end. Span Assassin takes the incoming “So Called Spam” and puts it into an attachment. If the user feels it’s not spam, they can then view the original message and let Spam Assassin know it’s not spam. This will reduce spam almost instantly, because the senders think the address isn’t working and will remove it from their list.

If all of the methods above are used and continued to be used, a user can reduce his or her amount of spam on any given domain name to almost nothing. Be sure to use alternate email address as this is the best way to beat spam. Remember that filters work better then you. So let them do all the work.