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What is spam?

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

SpamAssassin

Spam Assassin, is a reputable spam filtering software which is free of charge to all of our customers.   It scans and detects common characteristics of spam.  SpamAssassin can be activated on your website in your control panel.  You can configure SpamAssassin in 3 ways:

  1. Configure SpamAssassin to tag suspicious email by adding SPAM to the message subject line.  This allows you to set rules in Outlook directing all messages containing the tag into a separate folder.  (Refer to Outlook help files for how to create such filter rules, use the "ORGANIZE" button at the top.)  In this case, you never see the spam in your inbox.  You can check the separate spam folder if you are missing legitimate email which may have been tagged in error, and review/purge at your leisure.
     
  2. You can enable a spam box in your control panel and configure SpamAssassin to direct suspicious email to it.  This allows you to access the spam folder at your leisure, or only if necessary.  You must empty your spam box on a regular basis.  Excessive spam storage will build up over time.  If neglected, your hosting account could exceed disk space quota, causing bounce errors from your pop accounts.

    To POP the spam box just add "/spam" (without the quotes) to the end of your email login in Outlook (Example: name@mydomain.com/spam)
     

  3. Finally, you can configure SpamAssassin to delete suspicious email entirely.  No spam filtering is 100% accurate. It is possible for legitimate email to be tagged as spam in error.

How to Turn on Spam Assassin

This will not affect your ISP's email address....only email directed to all pop accounts created in your control panel.

1)  Login to your control panel with your username and password.  (Your user name and password was sent to you upon website launch).  Click here for instructions on how to login your control panel.

2)  Click the MAIL ICON

3)  Click on Spam Assassin from the list of links.

4)  Enable spam assassin or enable spam box by clicking on the appropriate box.

Please use the help desk if you have any questions.

For More Information about the software, visit the Spam Assassin website:  Spam Assassin  

How to Pop Your Spam Assassin Spam Box

If you have the Spam Box enabled in your control panel and are using SpamAssassin, below are instructions on how to pop all email marked as spam using your email client:

Enabling the Spam Box allows emails identified as spam by SpamAssassin to be delivered to a separate mail folder named "spam". If this folder is not regularly checked and emptied, it may cause your email or file system quotas to be exceeded, resulting in a failure to receive legitimate messages. To POP the spam box just add "/spam" (without the quotes) to the end of your email login in Outlook (Example: name@mydomain.com/spam)

This feature's use is generally discouraged in favor of sorting and deleting spam messages using your mail client. Without Spam Box you can configure SpamAssassin to mark your email with an identifying subject (e.g. ***SPAM***), which can then be filtered out into an appropriate location.

Fighting Spam from your PC

There are many spam filtering services and/or software for your PC which make it possible for you to use the same filtering method locally, regardless of how many pop accounts you access, which may be provided by one or more ISPs. (i.e. personal@earthlink.com, myname@blackberry.comsales@mydomain.com, me@mydomain.com, etc)  These can include your personal ISP account, your wireless provider's pop account, and all pop accounts created through your website hosting account.   This also allows you to make a separate folder in Outlook and create rules where all spam is sent to a central location (regardless of which account it came from).

To learn more about how to setup junk email filters in Outlook, click on the HELP menu, and search for the term "Junk Email". Your results will be similar to the following image. The Outlook help files give detailed information on how to filter spam.

Please avoid posting your email addresses on any public forums, or on the internet, as this invites them to be harvested by spammers.  If an email address is disclosed by posting it anywhere on the internet (by shopping, or joining various forums) the email address may be sold on one of many spam lists which changes hands over and over. Unfortunately the only thing you can do in this case, is to create a different pop account, and delete the original, targeted address.

Email Address Encryption

If you have (or have had) a mailto link on your website, this has made your email address vulnerable to malicious bots that crawl the web collecting addresses to sell them in spam lists. As a result, the amount of spam you receive may be getting out of control, as these lists change hands over and over.

We offer mailto link encryption to put a stop to the process. This work is free of charge to all standard and executive account service levels, and for a small fee for basic business. If you have an email hyperlink published on your site, and wish to have it encrypted, please open a ticket on our help desk or email.