Free Article Directory Submissions Without Being A Spammer

Successful free article submissions to directories on the internet is an effective way to market your article and get more traffic to your websites. Submitting to an article directory is a great way for people to find a free article written by you. There are a few problems with this system but you can overcome them and become more proficient in marketing articles. The trick is to submit your articles without being considered a spammer.

The weakness of the article submitting techniques is that it is very time consuming. I have submitted articles in three different ways: by Hand, and with Article Submitter and Instant Article Submitter software. Many directories require a login, ID and password, so each directory must be visited and a login established before submissions are accepted.

When submitting by hand, you have to cut and paste each section of the article into the individual directories. There are a lot of sections; first the Title, then the Category (very important, I'll get into this later), Author, Author email, Website Address, Keywords, Article Summary, Article Body, and About Author box. That is nine cut and pastes to submit to ONE article directory. If you wish to submit to 150-200 directories, a good part of your time is spent doing grunt work which does not allow you to pursue other avenues of traffic generation.

Now we come to the "semi-automated" submission software programs. Yes, they are easier, some more than others, but you still must go to each directory individually. It is crucial that you select a Category for your article. If this is not done the article directories will know you are using automatic submitting software and will treat your article as SPAM. Many directories especially frown on the "Automated Article Distribution Services" for just that reason. Therefore you will not be published and not only have you wasted your time writing your article but you may be classified as a spammer.

Within the "Article Submitter" Software, they have 138 auto fill and 25 manual fill directories listed. A visit to a majority of the directories must be done first in order to establish a login. You have the option of adding other article directories on your own, which is a nice touch.

The software will open to a page that is a form for "User Information". There are typical information requirements you would find in any sign up sheet like, name, company, email, website, etc. Then hit the tab for "Articles" where you will place the article for submission. You will fill in the Title Section, Article Body (including About Author), Summary and Keywords. Then choose the "Websites" tab. You can "select all" or pick and choose. Click on "Auto Fill" and it will take you to your first directory. A flaw here is that you can only have one article posted in the article section at a time.

Sounds easy, right? Well with "Article Submitter" you must be very careful. Once you have chosen your Category check each section. This software does not always put the right information in the right box and leaves some boxes blank. Again, if the directories feel you are using software carelessly they will delete your article. The manual sites are just that, manual top to bottom. It took me a full day for each article so it is still a time consuming process.

Then my partner found "Instant Article Submitter" which I have tested thoroughly. It is by far the easiest and quickest available at this time. Set up is still a bit tedious, once again you have to establish your logins, but only once. And I found them much more accurate in filling in the necessary submission forms. Yes, you still must choose your Category but only once for each niche.

They have 100's of Article Directories listed but there is a tab where you can mark your "Favorites". At first I was a little intimated but it is easy to follow and saves you a lot of time. I submitted to over 150 directories in about 4 hours and that was my first time using the software, so I was on the learning curve. Be careful not to hit the "Next Site Button" until after you have the confirmation that your article has been acknowledged.

So that has been my experience with these three systems for submitting articles to a Article Directory. I do not recommend hand posting, it is much too difficult.

For me the most convenient and least cumbersome was Instant Article Submitter for getting my articles out there to many Article Directories in the least amount of time.

About The Author:
Mary Hanna
Visit Mary Hannas websites at:
Web Marketing Reviews
Cruise Travel
Submit Articles Fast
Article Submitted On: October 20, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

What Is The Best Technology To Stop Spam

Legislative measures failed stop Spam up till now. Since Spam is basically a human problem you can do something about it using anti-spam technology. Anti-spam software is the only thing we have now to block undesired messages. It's not a foolproof method however. Let's see why.

Most anti-spam software use inspection techniques to detect Spam emails. The anti-spam program analyzes incoming messages and checks the message content against a known profile of Spam. Something like it asks a question "Does this message look as Spam?", and based on that analysis the anti-spam program takes the final decision to allow the message or block it. At best this approach can delete most of the Spam emails allowing only a few ones getting through.

The analysis method is not as reliable as it seems. If you slacken the rules, you'll get much Spam in your inbox. If the rules are too strict, you'll stop all the Spam with the risk to block quite legitimate messages. A legitimate email incorrectly blocked as spam is called a false positive. If you get a lot of false positives, you will need to read all the Spam emails looking for good messages among the rubbish. But this completely disproves the need of anti-spam software.

The main disadvantage of the analysis method is that the filters that work fine today can stop working tomorrow. Spammers can also try an anti-spam program to tailor their emails so that they will get around the filters. As far as the developers improve their anti-spam programs, the spammers perfect their spam techniques. That's why we get V1agra and C1alis and many other misspelled words in spam emails. Certain sophisticated techniques allow spammers make an email message that looks differently to a human person than the same message is read by a computer program, for example, when an email contains a text readable for the recipient but the program sees it as a picture. Such kind of spam emails is growing in popularity for spammers now.

A step forward in the analysis techniques is the Bayesian filters. Previously the decision if a particular email is legitimate or spam was made based on how this message was measured up against a general profile of Spam. The Bayesian filters inspect your own inbox and build the databases of good and spam words based on your own incoming messages. This makes possible to adjust the Bayesain filters for every user because the conception of Spam is subjective to some extent. By telling the Bayesian filters that this message is spam and that one is legitimate, you teach the filters to recognize the emails that you personally consider to be spam.

Whitelist and Blacklist do not solve the problem either. Adding trusted email addresses to the whitelist is not quite safe as it seems to be. Nowadays viruses are known to use the email addresses from various address books to forge the messages and send themselves out. It's not possible to add all the email addresses or even email domains to the blacklist either. Spammers do not use real email addresses to send spam. Today you get a spam email from this domain and tomorrow you can receive the very same spam email from a different domain. If you blacklist all the spammers' emails, this will result in the blacklist of an interminable size and slower work of anti-spam software.

Simply put, the war between the spammers and their victims continues. Although there is no perfect solution for the Spam problem today, take care and keep your anti-spam filters in fighting trim.

About The Author:
Dzmitry Vladyka
Author is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, G-Lock EasyMail, Spam Killer. More information can be found at Anti Spam Killer Resources
Submitted: 2006-10-26
Article Source: GoArticles

7 Steps To Effectively Take Control Of Your Inbox And Reduce Spam

Everbody hates spam! I am sure spammers hate getting spam too, but they still continue to dish it out. Why? Because it is still effective. Believe it or not, many of us still click on the links or follow-up with the spam message. As long as we continue to do this, spam will exist. If everybody understood this and paid no attention to spam, the spammers will eventually give up because it costs them realy money to send out emails. It is hard to quantify what the cost of sending out one, two or fifty emails is, but 1 million or 5 million emails certainly has a cost that is not negligible. When the payback starts to get so small that the spammers cannot make a decent living, they will find something else to do. This day will come and I cannot wait for it to arrive.

In the meantime, what can we do about it. Well, I am not going to tell you that there is a perfect solution that will stop all spam, but what I will tell you is that there is a way to reduce the problem and manage it effectively using the 7 steps outlined below.

Step #1: Get Your Own Domain Name

Fighting spam effectively starts with getting your own domain name. For example if your name is Andy Williams, you would purchase a domain name called andywilliams.com, which is of course already owned by the famous singer. This has some unique advantages over using an ISP given domain name or a webmail service such as Hotmail or Gmail. It also has some minor disadvantages. Let's examine these.

One major advantage is that you control the entire email address. You could create emails addresses like andy@andywilliams.com, info@andywilliams.com, sales@andywilliams.com and so on. This is in stark contract to an ISP assigned name like andywilliams@comcast.net. If you wanted another one, you'd have to open up another account or pay extra for each additional ISP assigned address. If you ever decided to switch ISP's, you would lose that email address and have to start over using a new one, and inform everyone you communicated with about it - a very messy proposition.

Many get around this problem by getting a Hotmail, Yahoo Mail or Gmail account which you can access from anywhere as long as you have internet access. These types of email accounts definitely have a place in your email toolchest, but do not suffice as your primary personal email address. One reason is that you do not have access to your email messages and address books when you are not online, like during a long flight. Anotehr drawback is that they do not allow you to export the online address books making portability very tedious.

I prefer owning my own domain name which I call my permanent email address. I will always have this email address as long as I renew this domain name every year. The cost of registering a domain name varies from $4 to $8 per year for most common ones. This is a small price to pay for the advantages it brings you.

The one minor disadvantage of owning your own domain name is that you need to manage it yourself, or have someone do it for you. This in my opinion is far outweighed by the advantages mentioned above.

Step #2: Create Private Email Adresses

A private email address is one that nobody but your inner circle knows about. Every person that you give your personal email address to is someone that you trust and want to receive email from.

Setup one private email address for every person who is going to need to receive messages. This could be you and 5 other members of your family or 12 employees that work for you. This part is quite straightforward, you simply login to your email control panel and create new accounts for each email address that is going to be used to receive email.

Step #3: Create Public Email Addresses As Aliases

A public email address is generally known to the public. It can be specific like andyw@andywilliams.com or generic like receptionist@andywilliams.com.

A public email address is created as an email alias. An email alias is not a real email address, but an address that gets redirected to a real email address. For example, you setup receptionist@andywilliams.com as an alias that redirects to mary@andywilliams.com. Whenever some sends an email to receptionist@andywilliams.com, it will end up in Mary's inbox. If you change receptionists, you simple modify the redirect for a very elegant solution. You can then publish this public email address on a website, in a brochure, on print advertising, business cards etc. without giving away your personal email address and without having to make much changes if Mary leaves and a new receptionist is hired. This is a huge benefit and maintains your privacy as well as those of others you have created email adresses for.

How does this help with spam, you ask? By using email aliases in a smart fashion, you could very easily shut down any spam that starts coming in. Let's examine how this can be done.

Step #4: Setup the Default or Catch-all Email Address

Your email control panel will have something called a "default address" or it is also sometimes called a "catch-all address". This is a valid email address that all unresolved emails go to. If you set this up to be your personal email address for example, then you will receive all emails that are addressed to @andywilliams.com, this includes sales@andywilliams.com, joe@andywilliams.com, andrew@andywilliams.com etc. Herein lies the secret to combat spam.

Step #5: Create Specific Named Public Email Addresses As And When Required

When you are forced to register on a website where you want to get some information from, you are usually asked for a valid email address. Well guess what, you now have an unlimited supply of valid email adresses. I usually use a specific format when registering at websites - it is @andywilliams.com. So if I am registering at a website called www.get-rich-quick.com, I would use the address get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com as my valid email address. When the site sends me an email, it gets redirected to my personal email or whatever the default or catch-all address is.

Step #6: Send Spam Back To Where It Came From, If Possible

Here comes the real bonus, if you subsequently start receiving spam addressed to none other than get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com, you simple create an email alias for get-rich-quick@andywilliams.com and redirect the email back to exactly where it came from, for example georg-bush@get-rick-quick.com. You will then never get another email from anyone using that email address ever again. This is cool and is my favourite part. Bear in mind that spammers usually send email from an address that is not their own, so if you see an address like noreply@get-rick-quick.com, then you would redirect it somewhere else, for example a Hotmail address that you setup just for redirection purposes. Please exercise some discretion here because spammers often use the email addresses of real people and we don't want these innocent people getting redirected email.

Step #7: Be Diligent In The Ongoing Management Of Your Domain

If you do this diligently for each website where you register by identifying the website name, you will very quickly know which websites are selling email addresses and which ones honor their promise not to share your information. ALl this while, nobody by your personal inner circle knows your private email address.

A real-life example in my case: I use a specific email alias for my Paypal account which nobody but Paypal knows. I have never ever received spam on this address, but I have received hundreds of spam messages on other email aliases that I have created. All of these emails supposedly come from Paypal and address me as "Dear Valued Paypal Member" or something similar, warning me that my account is going to be closed or suspended unless I click on their link and update my credit card information.

I hope that I have given you some food for thought on how to manage the ever growing spam problem by protecting yourself by taking some initiative and getting your own domain name. The added benefit is that you now have a permanent email address no matter where you choose to live or which ISP you use to connect to the internet.

There are many other ways to fight spam which I will perhaps address future articles.

About the Author:
Balraj Dhaliwal is an Internet Consultant for BSD Register. He helps customers with whatever they need to achieve their goals. BSD Register is well respected and liked by its customers because of its no nonsense simple approach to getting things done. Visit BSD Register at http://www.bsdregister.com
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

How To Get Rid Of Spam Stock Market Tips

Junk email, spam, is getting worse than ever. Even with an anti-spam filter, some junk emails that show up in the inbox are disgusting, deceptive, and aimed to con you out of your money. In addition to traditional spam emails promoting medication, mortgage, pornography, new ones such as stock scams are growing. The deceptive and unsolicited nature of these e-mails qualifies them as spam.

Stock scams, combined with traditional spam techniques, can cause a significant financial loss to victims of these swindles.

You might have noticed that many spams are touting a particular stock. These touts are sometimes made as part of a Pump and Dump scheme. Pump-and-dump scams are email campaigns which encourage people to invest in a particular company's stock, in order to quickly inflate its value and enable the spammers to make a fast profit. It is thought that these scams take place unbeknown to the company involved. The purpose of the pump-and-dump stock spam is to quickly and cheaply disperse false information about a company's stock, along with information obtained from recent press releases, to potential investors. Usually this is a slimly traded stock on a small exchange for only pennies a share.

By implying that recipients of spam emails are in possession of privileged information – such as news of an acquisition before a general announcement – spammers seek to persuade the gullible into purchasing particular stocks. If a significant enough number of easily-led individuals invest in the touted stock, a spammer can ramp up the share price so that existing shareholders can sell their shares at a profit. But when the fraudsters dump their shares, and then stop advertising the stock, the price often falls, and investors ultimately lose their cash.

What to do if you get spammed? How not to become a victim of stock scams?

The first thing you can to protect yourself against stock scams on the Internet and against spam on the whole is to setup an anti-spam filter, which will filter your messages before you receive them into your inbox. Most pump-and-dump spam emails contain the words like "stock", "invest", "investor reports". But to bypass spam filters, spammers can use the variations of the word "stock" such as "st0ck" or "stox". So, if your inbox is flooded with penny stock tip, ignore it. Delete it. Do not believe anyone who tells you, "Invest quickly or you will miss out on a once-in-a lifetime opportunity." Just don't go thinking this is your big chance to hit pay-dirt. It is sounds too good to be true. The only ones profiting from these "spam e-mail tips" are the senders themselves – in this case spammers.

The history of the stock market has shown that the best and most trusted way to build wealth is to invest in high-quality businesses with excellent growth opportunites.

Investigate before you invest. Find out who sent the message to you. Ask whether the claims can be documented. Verify whether the claims are true before you send a nickel of your money.

But if you yielded to temptation and became a victim pf a stock scam, you can hire a lawyer to try to get your money back, but you need to know that recovery is rare. Just remember that the best protection is to take no action and stay away from bad deals in the first place.

About The Author:
Julia Gulevich
Author is a technical expert associated with development of computer software like AATools, G-Lock EasyMail, Anti-Spam Software. More information can be found at Anti Spam Filter Resources
Posted: 23-10-2006
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

Five Scams You'll Want To Avoid

Many websites claim to offer home business opportunties. Some people do make money at home through online jobs, but many of these so-called opportunities are scams. How do you know the difference? Here are some tips for avoiding home business scams.

First, use some common sense. If you are looking because you're short on funds, it can be easy to talk yourself into believing the promises you will read online. Try to look at the offers objectively. Many scams try to convince you that you will become wealthy with little effort, and you might even see on the website that this is some "secret" for making money that is just now being revealed. Much later they reveal the cost for learning the secret. Before buying this kind of information, take a moment to wonder why it's being sold. If it's really that effective, the person selling it should be wealthy and not need to sell anything.

Second, don't get involved in a pyramid scheme. These are programs that pay you to recruit but don't really have a product to sell. You make money by getting other people to join the system. This only works for those who start the pyramid scheme, and is illegal in several states. Note that this is not the same as home party or similar plans where you get a percentage from what you sell in addition to a percentage from those you recruit.

Third, don't pay to stuff envelopes or make products. In fact, don't pay to work for anybody.

Forth, getting paid to do Survey's. While some companies may pay you, I have found that the majority do not. They offer a entery into a sweepstakes where "you could win" but in my experience the sweepstakes even has a catch as well where if you do win they want you to pay a registration fee of let's say $600.00 then you will get the "All inclusive trip for 2 to the Bahama's". Don't buy into it. There are way better things to waste your time on.

And lastly, anything with the word "Blaster" in it is a SCAM, unless you want your email filling up with spam don't do it. I had a campaign with Ad Blaster and I'm still unsubscribing to spammers.

Avoiding home business scams means avoiding anything that offers easy wealth. It also means avoiding paying to work for somebody. Don't expect anything online that makes no sense in the real world. Don't get scammed.

About the Author:
Brice Mattson
To Get the Best Internet Home Businesses, Work at Home Ideas and Opportunities visit: www.siriusfreehomebiz.com
Article Source: NewFREEArticles.com

Russian Spammers Learning English to SPAM Your Inbox

How do Russian Spammers get customers in the Western World? Well unlike many of the illegal aliens here coming from Mexico they are learning English and using this to their advantage to SPAM all of us? While we are busy complaining about illegal aliens closing some 80 hospitals in California due to anchor baby free deliveries and over crowding our Prison Systems, which is where we ought to put these Russian Spammers.

Recently I received this email message addressed to me as a US Business Person; “I offer you the services in advertising in Internet: 1. Bulk e-mail spam. We have many email lists from all world. Sent 1 million email cost - $200.00 and if you order great volumes of dispatches that the price for one million for only $100.00” and they even have a website; more information - http://interneo.ru/eng/mailspam.html .

Of course our Federal Trade Commission is impotent in Enforcing the billions of Viagra SPAM each day and cannot seem to stop these Russian Spammers. Why is it that the FTC constantly sends out press releases on how they are fighting the war in SPAM, and yet the SPAM keeps increasing. It is as if the real International Terrorists are Spammers and Scammers who hire them and yet our Justice Department is unable to fulfill their obligation. Consider this in 2006.

About the Author:
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse

Wham Bam Spam And Scam

Every day, I get several hundred e-mails, some days over a thousand. A lot of these are spam - according to a recent Doubleclick survey 62% of the mail in our inbox is considered SPAM.

But I don’t use a spam blocker - I don’t like them. I have plenty experience of sending e-mails to my friends who, when asked, tell me they didn’t receive them. I use different e-mails from yahoo and MSN when I’m signing up for newsletters and free offers around the net - I keep my main personal e-mail pretty restricted.

The other thing is - and please don’t hate me for this - I don’t really mind spam. I don’t like it for sure and I would never spam anyone myself - but neither do I think that all spammers are evil monsters with the horns, pointy tail, cloven hooves and pitchfork ensemble.

Of course, I’m not trying to sell anybody anti-spam software so I think this could have something to do with it.

I have a delete key on my keyboard, which I can use to delete multiple e-mails - it’s power and efficiency is awesome, one minute they’re there, the next they’re toast!

I draw a distinction between a spammer and a scammer. They can be one and the same but not always. But let me tell you what really hacks me off in the wonderful world of internet e-mail marketing. Two things, let the rant begin:

Shotgun Gurus

Gurus who operate lists which bombard you with offers and information completely unrelated to the original topic you signed up for.

As far as I’m concerned the fact that I opted in to some information course about building an e-mail list doesn’t give you the right to send me information on additives which will increase my fuel economy. Neither am I interested in being a keyword owner on your crappy word page or the free offer from your very good friend with the one time only opportunity to upgrade for only $300 before I even get to see the free offer. As for that great new software where the price might double sometime soon - take it and shove it.

RE: The Email You Never Sent

Like I said, I sometimes get over a thousand e-mails a day. However, I don’t often (autoresponders aside) send more than a dozen in any given day. They are usually important to me and sent to a relatively small group of friends and customers - so I can normally remember the subject line.

So, if you’re a guru, then the fastest way to get me to unsubscribe from your list - and ensure that I NEVER buy anything from you in future - is to send me an e-mail dressed up as a fake reply with the subject “RE: Whatever It Is You’re Trying To Sell Me This Time”.

If that’s the best you’ve got then you ain’t no guru. Get a proper job.

About The Author:
Hamish Hayward
Starting A Home Based Business ......
Discover the key criteria you must evaluate when starting your own online or offline business.
Article Submitted On: October 22, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Free Spam Blockers

Remember when spam was just another horrible thing you would never eat? And then you grew up a little and spam became the lyrics to a great Monty Python song. And now spam is something to avoid at all costs. Or, in the case of free spam blockers, at no cost at all. Everything is better when it’s free, right? Such is the case with blocking out annoying spam from your email account, too.

Free spam blockers are popping up all over the internet. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that some pop-up ads are advertising spam blocking technology. The problem with spam isn’t really the content, of course, it’s the time spent winnowing through all those e-mails in search of the ones that really contain useful information or are from people with whom you want to contact. The best free spam blockers in the world are not only free, but don’t take up any space on your computer. Yes, I’m talking about being very careful to whom you give your e-mail address.

The plain simple truth is that any time you fill out a form that asks for your e-mail address, you are just asking for spam. Maybe the site where you filled out the form sold your address to mass marketers and maybe they didn’t, but chances are if you have ever given your e-mail address to a company rather than an individual, you received spam because of it. And if you’re like most people doing business on the internet, you’re spending anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour and a half just checking your e-mail every day. You don’t have time to wade through the spam pool. That’s why getting yourself one of the reliable free spam blockers out there is so important.

You can almost instantly tell when you’ve come across one of these free spam blockers because of their oh-so-clever name. For instance, Spamhilator, SpamButcher, or SpamKiller. And you want to know a secret? They are almost all exactly alike. Oh sure, there are little differences that may mean a lot to you personally, but frankly it doesn’t matter. The best thing you can do is download them as a trial version—and with so many on the market offering trial versions, it makes no sense to ever download any of the free spam blockers that don’t offer trial versions—and check them out to make sure they do what they promise. And if they do what they promise, do they do it with a minimum amount of fuss and muss and maintenance on you part.

The key to using free spam blockers is maintenance. You got one in the first place to give yourself more time to do what you need to do. So why would you want to use a spam blocker is high maintenance itself? Go through all the free spam blockers that interest you and then narrow them down until you find the one that works completely in the background without throwing out stuff you really need and that doesn’t require you to keep checking up on it. That’s the one you want.

About the Author:
Matt Garrett www.Free-Spam-Blockers.Com www.Spam-Filters.net
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Why Do We Need Anti-Spam Software?

Spam, otherwise known as junk email or unsolicited commercial email; is quickly becoming on of the most prevalent complaints of internet users. Not only is it annoying, but it is quickly becoming a dangerous and potentially expensive problem for businesses as well as individuals.

How is it dangerous?

First and foremost, spam is one of the leading causes for clogged networks and slow connections. American Online, one of the nation's largest internet service providers; transmits over 8 trillion spam email messages a year. Those messages tie up valuable bandwidth and can slow down entire networks. Although end users will rarely see a significant change in their connections, they can rest assured that a noteworthy portion of their monthly bill is paying for that lost bandwidth.

Most spam includes images or weblinks within it commercial content. Although some of it is begin or at worst annoying, an increasing portion contains sexually explicit content. Spam messages frequently contain pornographic pictures or links to sex-related websites.

These messages are not suited for children yet can easily be accidentally opened by minors. In addition to simple sexual content, some of the most severely sexually explicit spam can contain images of such illegal and offensive acts such as bestiality or child pornography.

Aside from slowing connections or carrying unwanted pornography, spam is the leading cause of transmitted computer viruses. Computer viruses are programs which run malicious code which can damage computer systems, delete files and steal personal information. These viruses are often hidden in an email messages as attachments such as a pictures. Email transmitted viruses can render entire systems inoperable and delete important documents forever.

How can you stop it?

The easiest and most simple way to stop unwanted email is to employ a spam blocker. Spam blockers are manufactured by a variety of companies and be anywhere from free to costing upwards of 50$.

There are three basic types of spam blocking software. The first is a key-word blocker. These programs examine the header and body of an email message looking for a series of predefined criteria. For example, a program could be instructed to flag or block any email message containing the word "sex".

Although seemingly straightforward, the spam blocker also has to stop any spelling variation of sex such as sexx or s_e_x. Although this type of spam blocker can do very well at stopping spam, it also has a tendency to block personal emails which may or may not contain flagged words.

The second type of spam blocker is an address list blocker which blocks or flags any emails not coming from a predefined list of addresses (such as the user's address book).

Although this type of spam blocker does a very good job of not blocking personal emails from friends or family, it can inadvertently delete important messages from users not on the original predefined list. This can make it very easy to miss potentially important yet unexpected emails.

The third type of spam blocker is actually a hybrid of the aforementioned varieties. It will filter emails from known friendly accounts directly to the inbox while holding potentially dangerous emails in the filter. The user can then go in and sort through emails from either friendly strangers (non spam emails from unfamiliar addresses) or unfriendly strangers (spam emails from unfamiliar addresses).

Although these programs do require a slight amount of user interaction, they can protect your computer and keep you from inadvertently deleting important emails.

About The Author:
Robert Michael is a writer for Lib Antispam which is an excellent place to find antispam links, resources and articles. For more information go to: http://www.libantispam.com/
Submitted: 2006-10-08
Article Source: GoArticles

How Can I Prevent Spam?

Email -- we love to get personal email. We need to get our business email. But, do we need to get all the junk emails, too?

Back in the early 1990's, I remember checking my email one morning and finding a really neat one -- some creative computer science student from Hawaii had sent me his résumé. It took me a little while to figure out what had happened. This was my first-ever piece of spam. This kid had sent his résumé to everyone who had posted a message to any of the Usenet comp.sys.ibmpc newsgroups. Even after I knew what he did, I thought it was cool. Not too long after that, though, was the start of the most prolific Usenet spam -- the "green card lottery" spam.

Fast forward to 2005: I now receive about 250-300 emails per day, and it seems like 50% of them must be spam. Our ISPs can help, but, as users, we also have ways to control this.

First, never open or "preview" the junk email (with Outlook and Outlook Express, the "preview pane" actually opens the email in an embedded Internet Explorer window, which is probably one of the worst things you could do from a security point of view.) Second, never, ever, click on the link in the spam email if you do open it. Third, never, ever, ever buy the product advertised through spam. Spammers send millions of emails, hoping that even a tiny percentage of recipients will buy through their advertisement. If people refuse to buy the products advertised with spam, then the spammers will give up!

What else can you do? One control system you can use is a program called Mailwasher. With Mailwasher, you preview the sender and subject of emails before you actually download the emails from your ISP. Then, you can delete the junk emails before they are sent to you. The power of Mailwasher, though, is that you can cause Mailwasher to bounce the email back as if your email address did not exist. If you are lucky, your bounces cause the bad guys to take you off their list.

Outlook has its own "junk filter" system built in; however, I have heard mixed reports on its effectiveness. Some other email programs also have built-in junk filters. My choice is a free email “classification program” called PopFile, that handles spam/junk email as well as classifying any other type of email you want to identify -- such as "work," "computer tips," and "hobby." PopFile works in conjunction with "rules" that you create in Outlook & Outlook Express, also known as "filters" in other programs like Eudora, to segregate spam from the good stuff.

By default, PopFile will add "[spam]" to the beginning of the subject line of a message that it thinks is spam. Then, you can use the rules/filters to say "if the subject contains [spam], put this email in the junk folder." After training -- you have to train any anti-spam system to tell it what _you_ think is spam -- PopFile on my computer has averaged 99.45% accuracy since I reset the statistics in May, 2004 -- that's on over 165,000 emails!

You can download PopFile at http://popfile.sourceforge.net. It is free to use and free to share. PopFile works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird and other POP3 email programs.

Copyright (c) 2005 Terry A. Stockdale.

About the Author:
Terry Stockdale is a computer enthusiast, hobbyist, web publisher and consultant. His computer tips site http;//http://www.terryscomputertips.com is also home to his free computer tips newsletter. Terry also frequently updates his computer tips blog at http://blog.terryscomputertips.com.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

What You Should Know About Trackback Spam

Trackback facilitates communication between blogs. When a blogger writes a new entry whether to comment on or refer to an entry found at another blog, the commenting blogger can notify the other blog with a Trackback ping. The receiving blog will display summaries and links to all the commenting entries below the original entry. Trackback spam is when Trackback pings to a site that directs viewers to a totally unrelated URL.

Trackback Explained

Trackback as initially released is an open specification both as a protocol and as a feature of Movable Type 2.2. This contained the first implementation of Trackback. It has always been planned as an open system or a system that could easily be implemented in other blogging tools. This is because of the fact that the real value of Trackback can only be realized when many sites support it.

Basically, Trackback is designed to provide a method of notification between websites. This is a way of one person saying to another that "This is something you may be interested in". This can be done when a person sends a Trackback ping to the other.

Trackback is a form of remote comments where one person who wishes to comment on a post in another person's blog writes a post on his own weblog rather than posting the comment directly on the other person's weblog. The person commenting simply sends a Trackback ping to notify the other. Of course, this is only possible when both blogging tools support the Trackback protocol.

Trackback is likewise a form of content aggregation. When a person writes a post on a topic that a group of people are interested in, he/she sends a Trackback ping to a central server whereby all visitors can read all posts about the topic. Anyone interested in reading about a specific topic could look at the site to continue being updated on what bloggers have to say about it.

Blogging software that supports the Trackback protocol displays a "Trackback URL" along with every entry. This URL is used by the commenting blogger to send XML-formatted information about the new entry to this URL through his/her software. There are some blogging tools that are able to discover this Trackback URL automatically while others require the manual entry by the commenting blogger.

The protocol of Trackback is based on the principle of initiating the connection when sharing of information is desired rather than waiting for this same information to be discovered by other websites. Sites can communicate about related resources and are able to accomplish the automatic listing of all sites that have referenced a particular post. The ping also provides a firm, explicit link between entries as opposed to an implicit link that depends upon outside action.

Trackback is particularly useful in finding out whether other people are thinking well enough about what a person has written on a weblog to actually link to it. However, allowing Trackback links will require more site maintenance to remove Trackback links that are no longer valid. The capability of listing anyone who has placed a link to a site on one's blog can be abused by spammers.

Trackback Spam

The flood of Trackback initiated by spammers can put a strain on server resources. The amount of Trackback spam that a site is getting may be seen by clicking on "Trackbacks" from the main blog menu and select "Junk Trackbacks". The repeated pinging of one's server even at hundreds of times an hour by spammers can cause server CPU overloads and crashes and can result to having the web host shut down the affected account.

There are some defensive measures that can be taken, one is to moderate all Trackbacks. The MT 3.2 allows for approval of all Trackbacks before being posted to a site. Closely related to this is the limiting of unnecessary Trackback usage. Trackbacks are pointless when no one tracks a site back. Not everything needs to be "Trackbackable" so prudence in determining the difference is required. This move is all about giving the spammers less opportunities to play at one's expense.

The use of the powerful anti-spam Movable Type Plugin called Spam Lookup is another option. Being hit by a flood of Trackback spams can be stopped by looking for the common unwanted words or specific strings to block. Spam Lookup uses PERL Regular Expressions thus by adding a few characters to the keywords; more flexibility in what is being blocked is attained.

Spam Lookup can be configured at the blog or installation level. Configuring at the installation level is suitable for those who have just one blog or want any setting to apply across all the blogs on one's installation of Movable Type. When settings are intended only to apply to one blog, one can configure Spam Lookup using the Plugins Tab of the Settings Item on the weblog menu.

The plugin has three options in its anti-spam arsenal. It looks up the source IP address of the comment or Trackback and compares it with several centralized blacklist servers. There is an option to force moderation of the comment and adjust its junk status when the IP address is found on the blacklist server. It also looks up the domain names of the posted links. The plugin is likewise able to compare the IP of the source URL of the Trackback with the IP it was sent from. The blog software sending the ping is usually on the same server as the blog itself. Most spams are sent from zombie machines and not from the website thus this sort of spam can be detected.

Link settings are also looked into. A comment that has no links is unlikely to be spam as blog spams generally aim to link to a dodgy site to improve its rankings in search engines. Any comment or Trackback that has more than a certain number of links shall be forcibly moderated.

The keyword filter setting act upon keywords in comments and will replicate some functionality of MT-Blacklist. This is an incredibly powerful feature except that the plugin, by default hardly has any keywords in it. The WordPress Wiki is a good place to find a list that can be pasted in.

The Trackback validator plugin for WordPress performs a simple but very effective test on all Trackbacks in order to stop spam. The plugin retrieves the web page located at the URL included in the Trackback when one is received. The Trackback is approved when the page contains a link to one's weblog. If the page does not link, the Trackback is flagged as spam and rejected. Since Trackback spammers do not set up custom web pages linking to the weblogs they attack, this test would quickly reveal illegitimate Trackbacks.

About The Author:
Danny Wirken
http://www.theinternetone.net
Posted: 03-11-2006
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

How Bayesian Spam Filters Work

Those of us plagued by the onslaught of tens if not hundreds of unwanted emails greeting us as we open up our email accounts have some hope for respite in the form of Bayesian spam filters. For years spammers have been able to remain one step ahead of spam blockers simply because of their creativity and ability to adjust and evade blocking each time a new spam filter was developed. As a result, antispam software developers were certain of the task before them; to develop software that could continually learn from the new and creative techniques of spammers and as a result never fall behind in the spam blocking game.

Only recently, has such a solution been developed in the form of Bayesian filters. The Bayesian statistical method, upon which the filters are based, works on the premise of dividing emails into categories. The software takes a log of the emails which you choose to open and those you simply delete. All the while, it monitors the characteristics of both those emails you opened and those you did not. Over time, it learns from these aggregate figures. It will recognize certain words that appear frequently in those emails which you constantly ignore. The software will then be more prone to categorizing emails with a high frequency of that particular word as spam.

But lest you be concerned that not opening a few emails from your Aunt Sue will suddenly cause all emails with the word “Sue” to be categorized as spam you should know that the Bayesian filters work in the aggregate. This means, that while your decisions on which emails to open and which to not will affect the algorithm, so will the activities of thousands if not tens of thousands of other users. Spread across such a wide body of users, and aggregating data over such a period, there is only a minimal danger of false labeling. Rather, what you get is a very accurate long term tool to block spam. Unfortunately, those same characteristics which prevent false blocking also limit the Bayesian spam filter from blocking the front wave of a new spamming technique. So, often the effect is a few days or weeks of a new technique in spamming sneaking through the cracks until it is worked out into the algorithm.

By the same token, however, one of the great benefits of Bayesian spam filters is that they can be individualized. If you receive a disproportionate amount of spam based upon your online interests, you can actually modify a Bayesian spam blocker to treat certain words that are particularly spammy to you as such. That is to say, that while unprompted a Bayesian filter will be cautious to avoid over-blocking, when prompted by the user, the software can be made to block any specific type of spam emails.

Only recently has the technology become commercially available. Currently it is offered in a limited number of anti spam software programs which can be purchased and which scans each piece of email before it is opened. The other form is that which is actually embedded into the mail server software itself, meaning that the customer’s emails are already scanned and classified even before he or she opens up their email provider

About The Author:
Sara Anderwahl recommends that you visit http://www.barracudanetworks.com for more information on anti spam software.
Published 01/5/2006
Article Source: http://www.EzinePlug.com

Strategies for Preventing Comment Spam

Bloggers are painfully aware of website owners who try to improve their website's rank by adding links to blogs. There are several strategies for combating this problem. The first and most obvious method is to avoid free blogger sites. These are favorite targets for comment spam.

Bloggers who own their own software can add a no-follow tag. The rel=nofollow tag does not stop the spam, but it does stop robots from following the link. Blogger, owned by Google, implements these tags already. Wordpress has anti-comment spam plug-ins to help bloggers stop comment spam.

Do not bother banning the IP address - unplugging a computer for one hour can change the IP address, and changing a server's IP address is relatively easy. Some companies buy IP addresses in blocks of a hundred or more, and spammers also use open proxies. These are IP addresses that allow anyone access.

Configuring a blog to prevent javascript and HTML code in replies is a solid and easy to implement method of attacking comment spam. It is possible to configure some blog software programs to automatically convert any string that starts with http:// into a url. This will not stop manual comment spams, but it will stop the crawlers.

The spam crawlers search the web looking for descriptive form names. Field names like 'comment' or 'reply' make it too easy for comment spam crawlers to find a potential victim.

Many blogs are using CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart). This new tool requires the user to post a text and number combination before their post is published. However, a simple trip to the freelance bidding forums already indicates that countries (Ukraine and India are the most obvious) are hiring people to do nothing but post comments all day. This undermines CAPTCHA tools anyway!

There are two other methods that are available to most bloggers. The first is user authentication - this requires the person to sign up for a user name and password before publishing a post. This slows down comment spammers in two ways: (1) they must take an extra step before publishing, and (2) most authentication programs are configured to accept an email address once.

The second method is to moderate every post before it is published, but the sheer time involved can be daunting. However, the advantages of having 100% control over your blog's content can tip the scales in the favor of moderating. Many posts do not use relative keywords, or post irrelevant comments based on an emotional reaction to the information. Moderating the blog allows the blog owner total control over the information on their page.

About The Author:
Bill McRea
How do you solicit comments from your web sites reader while building an opt in email list. Answer The Commentator Not only do you ad content to your site, but our script also prevents Comment Spam. The Commentator is the solution.
Article Submitted On: October 05, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

How ‘Default’ Optioned Spam and Junk Email Filters Could Be Ruining Your Business

You spent tireless hours creating your business model, even longer perfecting your website to be the best that it can be. Taking count of your competitors, positioning yourself with a uniqueness that surely could not see you fail.

You agonized for weeks over the perfect website hosting company for your business, and chose the one that guaranteed you 99% uptime (you want your website ‘up’!). You have staff in place, or indeed if working alone, know that you will be your own ‘one-woman’ customer support team.

You have made an executive decision, through the hundreds of business meetings that you have had with yourself (in your own head - whilst falling asleep, in the bath and eating lunch) that you will be providing email sales and email customer support only. After all, if it is good enough for eBay then it is good enough for you yes.

Everything is in place, the site is live, the search engine marketing firm has been contracted for $39.95 a month (you don’t have much of a budget just yet), the advertising is in place and you have decided to do this yourself to save extra money (after all you summarize, why hire a company to look after PPC when you can easily do it yourself right).

It’s Monday, the perfect ‘go-live’ day, 1500 hours and the site has been live 8 hours, your pride and joy is up and running and your dream of making an online business a reality is now yours. You are getting visitors and hey, you are even starting to get sales and it’s all looking good.

You have employed some of the best anti spam/junk mail filter software there is to avoid unwanted distractions whilst you respond to your new customers and your website hosting company also guarantees you the most vigorous defence at server level for unwanted email.

But…suddenly there is a problem, you start receiving emails complaining that you have not replied to other emails, which you had never received. At first you simply thought it was a ‘crazy’ customer or one of those lost emails that never get there that you know the traditional postal service are so well known for.

But….then there are 2 emails complaining of non-response, one from a customer who had bought from you the previous day demanding that if you do not respond immediately that they will charge-back the transaction! Where did that come from, you never received an email but you did receive this email - why was that, this really is coming more of a regular occurrence and something that you need to take action in resolving.

Now, not only are you losing sales by not receiving emails of a pre-sales nature but you are receiving emails from your customers complaining that once they buy from you that you cannot be contacted.

And so it starts, the beginning of the end, a bad reputation for customer support, charged-back transactions that cost you and your now struggling website business additional money and a realization that there seems to be a problem with email, but you do not know what it is.

Ok, so the above might seem a little extreme but we live in an extreme world where just one issue can make or break a company and as a small ‘one-woman’ online business who has spent so much money on search engine marketing, advertising and making your website the best that it can be, you really could do without such issues. You want to be a success, not gain a reputation as one whom provides terrible service.

Where do you look to resolve the issue?

No further than the spam/junk mail filter software you purchased and/or the service mail filters that your website hosting company put in place ‘for your protection’.

The very purpose for which spam/junk mail filters are implemented, being to protect your mailbox from unwanted email, can be the very same good intentions that cause you great issues with your customers and cause annoyance to distraction in resolution.

What is an unwanted email; yes the hundreds of spam emails selling the latest pharmaceutical product from yet another untrained and un-web-educated affiliate. Emails that you never asked for or indeed want – they are so annoying that you ensured that your home PC, which is also used by your 2 kids (12 and 15 years of age) employs the same level of spam email protection as your business PC. You didn’t want your kids to become privy to ‘adult’ spam themed emails that pop through every mail box from uncaring spammers across the world did you.

But wait, this is your business computer and your business website we are talking about now, not your home PC where spam and junk email filters are best put to use. Your business uses email as its main communication tool, is it really a wise idea to put your faith in a piece of software or your website hosting companies default mail filters. Should you not really take on the ownership of deciding what is and what is not junk email, and the question to really ask oneself is, can your website business really afford to put the decision of what should and what should not arrive in your email box.

Regardless of how ‘intelligent’ the spam filter is, how much control you have over it, or indeed how much control you do not have over it if a default feature of your website hosting email accounts, any website business worth its salt needs at the very least to consider all of the factors that make up this fundamental business decision - to filter, or not to filter.

Have you run all appropriate tests? Can you receive emails from Hotmail, Yahoo and other free web accounts? What happens if an attachment comes with the email, and are there any kind of content filters or ‘auto-responder’ issues to think about. What about the different ISP’s, can you receive from AOL users - or more importantly sometimes, can AOL users receive your emails.

Explore the next set of issues, perhaps you can receive all emails, but what happens if your customer is using s spam/junk email filter and they cannot receive your reply. The nightmare scenario then of you actually responding to your customers contact emails but because of their ISP or junk mail filter they cannot receive your replies, have you tested this, have you tested the content of your emails? If you lace HTML or URL’s within the content is that accepted…yes these are all issues that you should have considered before your website even went live but this is not a well documented or well discussed topic.

Yet, this should a subject of conversation, it should be a topic of interest and it certainly should be something that is addressed as part of every website implementation plan.

Do not let a spam or junk email filter ruin your business. Get it setup properly, with thorough implementation and gain knowledge of how to operate it correctly. Don’t let technology take over by simply selecting the ‘default’ option.

NOTE: Not all website hosting companies implement anti-spam filters by default. If in doubt, ask. This article does not assume that spam/junk email filters will ruin a business, only that the business in question should be thoroughly knowledgeable of any issues when running such software – and where implementation and spam control is available that these are properly set up.

About the Author:
Suzzi Law is the quality and control marketing arm of www.servicewrap.net, with many years experience in undertaking search engine ranking services for hundreds of companies worldwide - - without real visitors it will not matter if you have email communication issues.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

SEO and Spam

Optimizing your web site for the search engines can be a difficult and time-consuming process. In addition to all of the tasks you must complete during the SEO process, you also need to conduct extensive research and continue to track your web traffic statistics to make sure your optimization efforts are worth the time and money you have spent. You may be tempted to use some rather unique techniques to boost your web rankings within a short time, but these techniques must be avoided in order to keep your site within the boundaries of ethical SEO. These methods can be considered spam, so learning how to avoid this distinction can save your reputation and help you boost your web site rankings.

Multiple Search Engine Submissions

While you can submit your web site to search engines more than once, submitting your site on a regular basis can have a harmful effect on your web rankings. Many search engines have guidelines for how many times you can submit your web site to be indexed. If you exceed these limits, you run the risk of being banned from the search engine or having your site ranked low in the results because you were found to be spamming the search engines.

Using Link Farms

Link farms are web sites where anyone can submit a link. This sounds like a great idea since links are so important for SEO, but using link farms can result in penalties or being banned from search engines altogether. Because link farms list links without any set criteria, they are not quality links that can help you to improve your page rankings. Some search engines will even penalize you or ban you for using link farms since these farms artificially improve your link popularity.

Hidden Text

Some sneaky optimizers may try to use hidden text on web pages. This is when text is printed in the same color as the background of the page so that it appears that the text does not exist. Search engines are wise to this method and you can be penalized for using hidden text to boost your web rankings.

Mirror Pages and Doorway Pages

Mirror pages and doorway pages are also unacceptable for search engine optimization. Using these methods, many designers would create identical pages, give them different titles, and submit all of the pages to the search engines. Now that the search engines do not accept these types of pages, using them is a waste of time and effort.

Overuse of Keywords

Keywords are very important for search engine optimization, but there are some limits to how many times the keywords can be used in your text. If you place keywords all over your page, you may be considered a keyword spammer and be penalized by the search engines or banned altogether.

Avoiding Spam

If you don't know the ins and outs of search engine optimization, you should consider hiring a professional SEO firm to optimize your site and submit it to the proper search engines and directories. The SEO Team offers a comprehensive list of web design and SEO services for businesses of any size. Visit our web site to find out about our SEO consulting services.

About The Author:
Bryan Garcia and his team of Internet marketing experts have been delivering TOP search engine results by using their unique formula of search engine optimization, Web site development, professional copywriting, and conversion consulting for a combined total of 20 years. Visit http://www.theseoteam.com to learn how your site can get to the top of the rankings.
Submitted: 2006-10-17
Article Source: GoArticles

Email Filtering Spam Tools

Spam is here to stay. And whether you like it or not, you have to face spam squarely and do your share in mitigating its negative effects. Although spam can be a source of information, spam is taken negatively because it is unsolicited. Who would ever want to receive bulk of emails containing product advertisements and easy get rich-schemes information? Spam can slow down your server's bandwidth and can be a form of spy ware designed to steal confidential information from your computer.

One way to deal with spam or unsolicited emails is thru email filters or email filtering spam. Basically email filtering is a process which acts as a shield to inbound and even existing emails. Your emails should be screened out not only to unclog your email box and your mail server from spam but also to address possible threats of viruses and even spyware that may encroach into your computer and later hamper your productivity.

Email filtering spam can be classified into integrated, stand alone and online. All of these email filtering spam categories share one common objective geared towards ridding out spam and even viruses. They only differ on how email filtering process is employed and undertaken.

Email filtering spam under the integrated category is the most common among the three categories. Such email filtering spam integrates email filter as a feature of your existing email software. With this feature, you can mark emails as spam or not spam or you can bounce the email back to sender. Most integrated email filtering spam tools automatically segregate and place suspected spam into a folder for deletion or retention. Examples of integrated email filters are Spambully and Spam Inspector.

The stand alone email filtering spam is not a common email filter. However, it is as useful as the rest of commonly used email filtering spam. This is in the form of a separate application installed on your PC. One major advantage of using this email filtering spam is that it checks emails on the mail server before they are downloaded. The only drawback is that it requires technical configuration which may not be an easy task for a non technical user. One popular example of standalone email filter is MailwasherPro.

The third email filtering spam category is called online. Online spam filters are two types. One type is for commercial use while the second type is for home use. For the business type, this online email filtering spam directly deletes spam from the mail server without even reaching the recipients. On the other hand for the home use type, emails sent require authentication from the sender. Authentication failure means non acceptance of inbound email to user's inbox. Typical examples of business type and home use type are iHate and Spam Arrest respectively.

The email filtering spam tools presented above are available options in addressing spam. Still the effectiveness of any of the email spam filters above lies on how you optimally use these tools. Joining e-groups and forums on email filtering spam could provide you invaluable information and help you deal with spam better.

About The Author:
Kistina Robin
Want to know more about Email Filtering Spam Tools
Posted: 31-10-2006
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

Content Crazy

Content issues today are very much an issues of either Tasmanian Article Submitters or Productive Elmer Fud Authors. I write this article not because I want to slam anyone. The sole purpose is to put the whole content issue with articles to a screaming halt; I hope. I have read many reports claiming articles have a down side to the Internet, and that beast is Article Spam. One interesting factor, Article Spam really is a larger problem than expected. Article Marketing Spam has more components to it than just the (food) word spam. As defined by Jason Potash in his recent report “Why Many Internet Marketers Are Dead Wrong About The Right Way To Use (And Profit From) Content In 2006 And How They Will Quickly Paralyze Their Businesses As A Result!.”

“Here's what happened: In 2005, the search engine optimization (SEO) community began to take notice of submitting articles as an easy way to generate much needed back links to their websites.

Google was cracking down on reciprocal linking (more specifically, poorquality incoming links generated from link farms or spam sites). Everyone and their uncle began hiring ghostwriters, getting articles produced, and mass submitting them to dozens of article directories. Their back links grew like crazy... so did their rankings, and suddenly their websites had "legs" since hundreds of other “authority” sites were one-way linking to them.

It worked like a dream for a few months... then article spam started to become a REAL problem.

Article directory owners across the world began to feel the pain of watching their weekly article submissions balloon by 400% (if not more).

The problem?

Up to 40% of the new articles they received were pure garbage and had to be deleted on the spot. And even some articles that were pretty good still got trashed because many of them made silly (amateur) mistakes that could easily be corrected.

So, while the article spammers continue to submit dozens of crappy articles per week, the jokes is on them.

Only a handful of their articles actually see the light of day.

In fact, some article spammers even developed custom scripts/robots that go out and plow through article directories and force feed their articles to them a few dozen at a time. Their gameplan is quantity over quality. Keep submitting and eventually a few articles will stick.

Yes, some articles will sneak their way into the article directories. If you take shovels full of cow dung and repeatedly hurl them at a barn door, some of it will stick.” (“Why Many Internet Marketers Are Dead Wrong About The Right Way To Use (And Profit From) Content In 2006 And How They Will Quickly Paralyze Their Businesses As A Result!” Jolt Marketing Inc.)

Now Jason makes a very good point about the quality of reports written. I must make a confession here, I attended a Siena Heights University, in Adrian Michigan and during the course of earning my education I wrote a bazillion and one half papers of all types. I have learned to write and communicate my ideas in written form (I Hope!). Now we are in the techno age, and writing is required from everyone who participates. Basic knowledge of reading and writing is necessary to use the computer. With a good word processor software on a computer to assist in the correction of basic grammatical errors anyone can write respectable article.

Respectable articles require some time and effort to think through what you are writing about. Structuring ideas to text, and formatting to a legible compilation. Now, the hard part is spell checking by using your word processors spell checker. When the writer eliminates all the green and red squiggles under their text, read the article out loud. Reading the article aloud is the easiest method for checking the flow of an article. If an article can be read without problems, you have got the article ready for submission.

Submission is another point Jason makes in his report that creates article spam. Like link spam the search engines do not like to see an excessive amount of back links added at one time. Excessive back links is an unnatural progression to developing back links. A successful strategy is to build your back links slow. I personally choose about 10 links in 1 week. Article Spammers do article submissions in bulk of 1000’s.

The same strategy applies to article submission back links, build slow. Article submission using Article Submitter with greater control of how many submissions you do in a day, and control of the category your article is submitted into. Building your article back links slower, creates a more natural building progression, the search engines will not flag your website as suspicious. Slow submission is difficult in a time when we are so geared to doing all of our tasks fast to get ahead of the competition.

Getting ahead of the competition does not mean submitting 3,4,5, articles a day to the article repositories. How can anyone write 3,4,5, quality articles in one day? I am sure it is possible, but I desire to think my articles through and write quality articles.

In conclusion, the natural way to build back links to your websites, also applies to article submission. Good quality articles require some editing, and a little work but is necessary. Article Spam can be avoided if submissions are done with quality tools, and submitted to a specific number of repositories in a single day.

About the Author:
Duncan owner of the Viral Source Article Extravaganza www.linkbrander.com/go/9814,
Article Source: NewFREEArticles.com

Green Eggs And Spam

To clarify, I am not talking about rotten eggs or that horrible stuff the poor depression dwellers had to eat, I am talking about computer e-mail spam.

What is this spam I speak of?

Spam is best defined as unsolicited and unwanted commercial electronic messages or e-mails that are sent to large numbers of people.

Ask any computer user and the most annoying thing about having and using e-mail is the annoying amount of spam you get. It is predicted that spam could eventually kill the usability of e-mail unless effective barriers and law changes are introduced. In 2003 it was reported that 40% of all e-mail traffic in the US was spam up from just 8% in 2001. Over the past 6 months this figure has doubled. Hotmail a popular e-mail service, says that 80% of e-mail coming to their servers is spam.

You might say that I don't get as much spam as I used to. Well this is thanks to internet providers and businesses filtering this out before you see it. One problem with spam filters is that occasionally users encounter false positives in which important and legitimate e-mail gets blocked. Due to these necessary anti-spam measures, the costs involved are huge. Not only does all this excessive internet traffic clog up the internet freeway, but all these e-mails are downloaded to servers before the anti-spam software deletes it. Businesses worldwide report that 20% of all e-mail received is spam. It is estimated that the true cost of spam for businesses in the United States alone is $8-9 billion US dollars per year.

Why is there so much spam?

The simple answer is that there is a market for spam. If people didn't buy from spam e-mail there wouldnt be any spam. All the spammer needs is for one person, out of a few hundred thousand e-mails, to buy something and it makes the whole process worth while. Sending the spam requires little effort on the spammers part as the computer automates the process meaning that it is very easy to send out over a million e-mails an hour.

What is the world and in particular New Zealand doing about all this spam?

On the 23rd of February '05 the Information Technology minister, Paul Swann, released a proposed law will that make it illegal to send spam that originates from NZ. Only problem is that only 1% of spam originates from Australia and NZ, and to actually catch and prosecute a spammer is very difficult due to spammers being good at hiding there identity.

In April '05, a 30 year old spammer in the United States became the first person to be prosecuted for spamming. He was sentenced to a nine year prison term. He is described as a modern day snake oil salesman being the eighth most prolific spammer in the world, sending up to 10 million e-mails a day from his house. His income was $750,000 US per month, with one in every 30,000 e-mails sent generating money. He sent out so much e-mail that he received, on average, 15,000 credit card orders a month, each order worth an average of $US40. His total worth is $24 million US dollars, he advertised pornography, fake products and services. During the court case the assistant attorney general said and I quote "When your marketing to the world, there are enough idiots out there who will be suckered in."

Remember that spam is only a problem due to people purchasing from spam e-mail, if there was no demand there would be no spam, security firm Mirapoint, reports that 1 in 10 people buy something from spam e-mail.

So how do I protect myself from spam?

There are a three main ways to stop being spammed.

The first and the best form of defence is not to give out your personal e-mail address. Don't publicise your address in chat rooms or fill in forms on a website. For this purpose, you are best to use a public e-mail address such as a hotmail account, as some web site owners are more than happy to sell your e-mail address to a spammer.

Secondly use an internet provider that controls and monitors spam.

Thirdly install anti-spam software on your PC.

Therefore in this day and age there really is no need to eat green eggs and spam!

About the Author:
Richard Warlow is a director of http://www.brontobyte.co.nz, a Computer Retailer in Christchurch, New Zealand, supplying to local small businesses and home users of computer equipment and servicing. I am also a toastmaster, this article was based on a speech given.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Blog Spamming

The phenomenal spread of the Internet all over the world has led to countless innovations and practices. In the recent years, another phenomenon has risen to the top of the things to do list on the Internet – blogging. Relatively unknown several years ago, blogging is now one of most common activities online. It is derived from the root word blog, which is actually short for web log – an online diary of sorts. Then there is spamming. Spam, in the broad sense of the word, simply means anything that is junk. E-mails and other information that is repeated and essentially irrelevant are considered spam. Put blog and spam together and you have blog spams.

What exactly is a blog spam? A blog spam is simply a blog that does not have much in form of content. A blog spam exists merely to drive traffic to certain sites. It is in fact used by many people as a SEO technique. Blog spamming is not acceptable to a wide range of sectors. With the main aim of generating traffic, blog spams do not really contribute anything relevant. They exist to provide links to their parent websites and nothing else.

How do you spam blogs? As already discussed above, blogs are normally used to publish information related to website content. Thus content is the most important thing. For blog spams, however, no such importance is placed on content. Thus blog spams may contain just about anything! To increase traffic to the parent website, blog spams are normally filled with only links or classifieds (which actually point to another site). Another aspect of spam blogging is the comment feature. Programs are created to post spam as comments in different blogs. This has become an irritant because spam posted as comments are generally unrelated to the blog topic.

Of course, many legitimate blog hosts condemn spam blogging and are coming up with ways to prevent spam blogging. One of these is through the image verification process where the person posting a comment has to enter a security code before the comment is published. Another one is trough comment moderation options made available in some blogs. Companies which host free blogs are the worst hit by blog spams. However, despite the efforts of these companies to counter blog spamming, unscrupulous individuals somehow still find ways to spam blogs. Maybe this is due largely to the fact that the Internet is a fast evolving technology, and what may work now may not do so the next day. But the best thing you can do is this: provide great content and you will find that there is no need for blog spamming.

About The Author:
Kistina Robin
Find most recent articles at Blog Spam.
Article Submitted On: October 07, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/