How to avoid SPAM

Written by Chris Harpin   

Checking your email box can become a huge task if you are inundated by offers of performance enhancing drugs and body enlargement pills and services.

If you do receive unsolicited mail, delete it without clicking any links in the email. 

This can all be avoided if you take simple steps to keep your email address hidden from SPAMMERS.


  1. Do not advertise your email address on your website. Clients and potential customers can still contact you through your website if you set up an online form similar to the one on our contact page. Your email address will be secured on a server in such a way that spammers are unable obtain it. A lot of people still believe that masking (using code to make your address unrecognisable to spam bots) your email address on your site will protect you; this is not the case as SPAMMERS make a huge amount of money from what they do. As a result their systems are now so sophisticated that they are able to recognise and record even masked addresses.
  2. Do not put your address on any forums where it will be displayed to the public. SPAM bots trawl through forums and this will result in you receiving volumes of unsolicited mail.
  3. Only sign up for email newsletters on reputable sites. Always check a site's privacy policy prior to entering your personal details.
  4. If you do receive unsolicited mail, delete it without clicking any links in the email. Once you click a ‘remove me from this mailing list’ link you are telling SPAMMERS that your email address is active. This will encourage them to send you even more mail. Legitimate e-newsletters like the Castus E-Newsletter are safe to click. If you do not recognise the e-mail  address that sent you the SPAM, chances are it’s best to avoid it.
  5. Do not forward any SPAM e-mail messages, as this may also send a signal back to the originator to tell the SPAMMER that your e-mail address is a valid one.
  6. If you use Outlook you can block an email address by adding them to your ‘Blocked Senders List’.
  7. Use a SPAM blocker, I always suggest setting up something locally. If your site is hosted by Castus we can set up a SPAM Blocker on your domain (£50 per annum licence fee). This then takes control away from you and our server will decide what mail is SPAM and what is not.
  8. Know what services are available in your country. I recently received a SPAM message that had illegal content. My regional Police Authority informed me of the Internet Watch Foundation. The IWF is a service set up to investigate and prevent ‘Child abuse images hosted worldwide and criminally obscene and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK’. If you ever receive mail of this sort, I recommend that you report it. Do not assume that someone else will report offensive or criminal content, we have a collective responsibility to protect the internet from such abuse.

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