We have recently been having a discussion about spam and how to stop it, on the DMS news services. If you are suffering from an overflow of spam, the following might be of interest.

The discussion has reached the point where Hamilton House seems to be getting less spam, but other readers claim they are getting more and more. Here’s my response…

Obviously different service suppliers have different filter systems, and it is just possible that our internet/email service (which is provided through OneandOne) happens to be getting it right.

But I doubt this because most spam blocking systems seem to be hopeless – they either block too much or too little, and I have seen no change in the number of emails going into delete or some other place, without me seeing them. Nor an increase in the number of people saying “didn’t you get my email?”

So, as part of the exquisite service that you always receive from Hamilton House, here are the two hints on possible ways to cut spam levels.

One, reduce to as low a level as possible the number of email addresses quoted on your web sites. Most spam seems to me to be picked up from web sites – and we now quote quite a few of ours (not all, but a lot) in the format Tony at Hamilton-house.com which means the link is not picked up by most programs that trawl for addresses. This takes a while to have an effect, but do it now and by the end of the year the number will be going down.

Two, when a new stream of emails appears I note a phrase that is regularly used (such as “up date your account”, or the one about being sorry to interrupt me at this time of day) and set up a message rule that throws any email that contains this phrase straight into the delete box. Yes it does mean that if you wrote to me and put three dollar signs together in the text, I wouldn’t get your message, but most people I know don’t write in that way.

These approaches are not 100% efficient, but if there hasn’t been a downturn in the level of junk email, then I suspect that because these approaches have been applied for some time now they have gradually had an accumulative effect.

Any other thoughts on ways of cutting spam without taking out the interesting bits, very welcome.

Of course this does affect the way one writes email adverts in such a way as to make them work. I’ve got quite a lot of info on this if you want to chat about it any time. Also there is quite a lot about email marketing on www.yesmail.org.uk