Many Agents I speak to tell me they are inundated with SPAM and I have compiled a list of must do’s if you want to rid yourself of much of the SPAM. As far as your current email address is concerned it is too late, but talk with your service provider and get a new one, then over the next few months inform all of your legitimate contacts of the need to update your contact details.
As far as your office email [email protected] or [email protected] are natural picks that all spammers will target so think of something easy to remember but a little different. Spammers have systems that identify domain names and regular used email addresses like these, so it is best to come up with something different.
1. Never EVER un-subscribe
You probably never subscribed in the first place, if you unsubscribe then you are telling them that you are a LIVE email and you will just get more SPAM. If it is from a reputable source then yes you can un-subscribe but make sure it is a reputable source.
2. Never EVER reply
Again you might feel that abusing them may well stop them, but the majority of these people are overseas and could not care less about your ‘lawyers’. If you email them then expect twice as much or more SPAM>
3. Do not display email link on web page.
Many Spammers have little web bots that scour web pages and collect emails, if you have an email link showing consider yourself served. Sometimes it cannot be helped, so if you do display an email link make it an alias that re-directs to your real email address, you can then change this every few months.
How: Your web developer should make most of your email links a graphic that then pops up to a form to email.
These are simple rules all of you must follow. It pays to have a main email address for all of your emails and also aliases, these are just pretend email addresses that you can change from time to time. Your web host and developer will be able to set these up for you as it is quite a simple process.
