Q. How can I avoid receiving unsolicited e-mail messages?

Ans. There are many ways you can avoid unsolicited e-mail messages (spam), but here are some of the most effective ways.

When you create your e-mail address, ensure that it isn’t predictable. Having an e-mail address such as webmaster@yourdomain.com can make it easier for spammers to send you these unsolicited e-mail messages. Another way you could try and avoid spam is by never publicly submitting your e-mail address online etc. If you post your e-mail on your website, bulletin boards etc, spam bots can easily find your e-mail, and you’ll instantly be added to a spam list.

If you need to provide a method of online contact for your website visitors, use a contact form rather than publishing your e-mail address.

Usually, it’s always best if you have two e-mail addresses. When you sign up for a service which requires you to submit your e-mail, and if you aren’t too sure on how their e-mail policy operates, you can submit them a second e-mail address to them, which will ensure that your primary mailbox remains spam-free. Remember, if at a later stage you feel you can trust the company you have submitted your secondary e-mail address to, you can always change it back to your primary mailbox.

Catchall Setting: Never turn on Catchall option from the control panel as this option allows spammers to spam your catchall account with multiple spams and it also allows them to use any random email address on your domain name as reply-to & Sender email address in their spams. Many mail servers verify sender address before accepting any emails by sending a hello! message on the sender address and if they get ok! reply then the email is delivered to the recipient. You will then start getting multiple email delivery failure notifications on regular basis as a random email address on your domain name was included as reply-to / error-to / sender address by the spammers. If you see catchall setting enabled for your account by default then remember to reset it and make it send all catchall emails to “:fail:” ( without quotes ). This setting will not allow spammers to use your domain name in the spamming scripts.

One of the more important ways to prevent spam is by having spam protection on the server. All eUKhost Linux cPanel hosting servers as well as Plesk Windows Hosting Servers come with SpamAssassin, which is very effective at identifying spam e-mail messages, and removing them before they reach your mailbox.