All About Spam

It seems that a lot of people are still struggling with spam in their inboxes. I wanted to write this to help you understand the ins and outs of spam, why you still get it despite spam filters and of course, make sure you’re doing all you can to prevent it.

It’s important to understand that if even 1 out of a million people click on the link in email, then the spammers have made a buck. Do you do a lot of shopping or searching on the internet? Then this is going to make you really mad but – most of the spam you get is because you (yes YOU!) gave some site your email address. They turned around and sold it for a buck.

Is your antivirus/anti-malware program up to date? Do you even have one or know how to manage it? Many computers are infected with bots that turn their computer into a spamming machine and target the user’s address book. YOU could be the reason all your friends are being spammed to death.

“But Jessica, I have a spam filter” you say to me in the frustrated phone calls and emails. I’m here to tell you, that you could have the best filter in the world and still get spam. Or the other end of the spectrum is your frustration when a “legitimate” email gets blocked.

Are you into politics? Does your mother send you the latest information from whatever “news source” she follows daily? If the email has tons of hyperlinks, lots of images, etc – it’s probably going to get blocked no matter how much you love your mom!

Spam filters are looking for ‘faked’ legitimate emails to keep out.

Don’t bother un-subscribing to SPAM. It will either be a waste of time or an invitation to get more SPAM.  Only unsubscribe from reputable companies whose email newsletter you no longer want to receive.

PLEASE UNDERSTAND I am not saying you’re not right to get annoyed, but you have to understand that there is no perfect science for spam.  That being said, if you’d like some help optimizing your system to reduce your spam problem, give me a call. I have quite a lot of very happy clients who get very little spam using the tools I provide.