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| Spam Blocking Information |
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Is Your Website Blacklisted?
A blacklist, as the name implies, is a list of people or companies who have met with the disapproval of others. In the online world a blacklist refers to those people who have been marked as responsible for generating spam in a very big way. Blacklists are also known as blocklists. Blacklists are used to combat spam in a very specific way. When spam is reported to one of the relevant spam fighting organizations the IP address the spam originated from is added to a banned or blacklisted IP addresslist. An IP address is the unique location of you or your website on the internet - think of it as your "home address" online. To put it simply every www.domain.com Internet address has a matching IP address. Any email coming from your website domain also has a corresponding IP address. If your IP address is present on a blacklist then you're potentially wasting your time sending email to customers. Why are you wasting your time? Modern spam blockers come with the most common blacklists installed and/or allow you to import updated blacklists into your spam blocker. This allows to you block a huge amount of spam but you may also, potentially, block legitimate email. Blacklists are not foolproof. There are two types of IP address: Dynamic - changes every time you connect to the Internet. Most commonly used for dialup Internet access. Spammers love these because they're very hard to track and 100% disposable. Fixed/Static - All websites, most large companies and some individuals use fixed IP addresses. This can cause huge problems if they're reported for spamming. When an IP address (dynamic or fixed ) is reported for sending spam it's added to a blacklist. There are three different types of blacklists: Temporary An IP address placed on a temporary blacklist will have email coming from that IP address blocked for several hours. After a few hours the offending IP address is removed from the blacklist. Permanent When an IP address is added to a permanent blacklist any email server configured to block email from this list will never receive email from that range of IP addresses again. Comprehensive This is the most damaging of blacklists. Not only does it block a single IP address it also blocks the IP addresses next to it. For example if the IP address 192.156.66.67 was added to a comprehensive blacklist then all IP addresses close to 192.156.66.67 will also be blocked. This can be a huge problem for those website owners using virtual hosting because if your host has ever appeared on a blacklist then you're also on the same blacklist, by default, because of the shared hosting from the same IP range. It's important for all website owners to check whether or not they're on a blacklist. You'll need your IP address (available from your webhost) and you can check your blacklist status at: www.mail-abuse.org/cgi-bin/lookup Blacklists are a necessary evil due to the volume of spam being sent each day but are not an exact science. Take a few moments from your day and ensure that your website or email address is not being blocked. This article was provided courtesy of Spam-site.com which reviews and tests spam blockers for the business and end user.
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RELATED ARTICLES
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Then we need to register a domain name which will allow us to have lots of forwarded email addresses. 123-Reg.com are an example of a company that provides an inexpensive high-quality service to do this, so we'll use them as an example. Create an account, it's free to do this, and give them your real email address. Then you should register a domain name with them; obviously you need to think of a domain name which you would like as part of your "public face." Choosing a name you like can take a little thought, but don't take too long, domain names are being registered at the rate of one every two seconds, so get in to secure yours as soon as you can! The cost is very low, with .uk domains at around UK�3 / US$5 per year and .com/.net around UK�9 / US$15 per year (note, you should register for at least two years). Using the email forwarding option from the 123-reg.com control panel, set the catch-all address as your real email address. 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So what happens if she finds one of her email addresses is being targeted by spammers? Let's assume this happens to her "[email protected]" email address. She then goes to 123-reg.com, logs in and goes to the control panel. She selects the email forwarding page, adds a fresh line with '[email protected]' in it, clicks the 'return to sender' checkbox and clicks 'update'. Now any email to this address will be returned to whence it came. Nice, eh? �2005 Paul Quirk & Mark Quirk. Article taken from CareOfWindowsXP.com. Invasion of the Email Snatchers They're sneaky. And stealthy. They're quiet and mostly unobtrusive, but once you've been visited by them, you'll know it. Because you'll be inundated with a seemingly never-ending stream of spam-mails. Getting Back To Basics. While we all agree that there`s way too much spamming/junk-mailing going on in our email boxes, there are a couple of things we can do to reduce the amount of mails we actually have to sift through, without having to resort to paying for expensive software that can be a real pain to set up properly. Firstly, and this is a great, little known tip. You can get yourself a free email account, (the bigger the better) which is a great thing to have if you use a lot of FFA`s, Classified sites, Search Engine Submittals etc. When you create the junkmail account, be sure to save the information you`ve used to create it with into a Wordpad/Notepad file. When the account is full, flit through it quickly, just to make sure there`s nothing of real importance there. If there is, copy and paste it to your favourite text document. Then just go ahead and delete the whole junkmail account. You`ve saved the info you used to create it with in the first place, so it`ll only take a couple of minutes to re-create it. Next, whenever you join a program or a site, have your email client open at the same time, so you get the welcome mails immediately. Confirm the welcome immediately, then put the mail into a special folder, created for all emails from that particular address. That way, different emails go to different folders, without getting too mixed up. If and when you decide to leave that program, delete all the mail you`ve saved from them, but please make sure that you DO actually opt-out before doing this. Another thing to remember is if you`re getting mails from someplace and you`re pretty darned sure you have absolutely no reason to be getting them, DON`T click on the remove me link! What you`re really doing, is letting the spammers know that they`ve mailed to a real, used address, and they`ll mail more and more, and never stop. Some of the more unscrupulous ones will even sell your address to be used as part of a mailing list, which in turn with result in even MORE spam. A lot of people seem to have forgotten where the delete button is, and scream the dreaded word "SPAM!!" as soon as an unfamiliar looking email drops into their inbox. This can be very damaging to legitimate business owners, so please, don`t ever say spam, unless it well and truly is. If you really don`t have time or inclination to follow these tips, there IS software out there that can filter your mails automatically for you. The biggest drawback with these is that they can actually stop you receiving mail that you WANT to get if you don`t set it up properly. Setting up the software filters can also be very confusing and time consuming, so if that`s the way you choose to go, make sure you set aside some time for it, and don`t get distracted by anything else until it`s done. May you be prosperous in everything you do. Im Guilty Until Proven Innocent No doubt about it. Spammer in the Slammer: Jeremy Jaynes Sentenced to Nine Years Will other spammers take heed? Don't count on it. Challenge Response Spam Filters Explained As the flood of spam increases end users are looking for new and more efficient solutions to block spam. In turn software developers are knocking themselves out trying to come up with the killer app that will stop spam forever. Internet Theft and Fraud My friends in the web hosting business have recently informed me that the big problem this year (2004) is security and fraud. I have read that currently the F.B.I. receives over 9,000 complaints per month pertaining to bogus email and websites. Why is this happening? Are just a few 'bad apples' doing it, or is it the result of a lopsided world economy where the underprivileged are finally striking back like the infamous Robin Hood? 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