Are your emails getting through? Maybe they're getting caught by SpamAssassin or some other overzealous spam filtering system! Here are the top tips to help you reduce the chances of your message getting caught up in the same net as all those "Get Rich Quick" schemes, herbal viAgr@ ads, Nigerian scammers offering you millions in exchange for your credit card number, and phishing messages telling you to confirm your account details with some bank you've never heard of in somewhere near BFE.
#1 Don't worry too much about the specific rules a spam filter is
using. They're designed to trap spam and if you're not sending it, you should be
okay.
#2: Make sure your email headers aren't telling porkies (pork pies, lies?). The
From should be your real email address, the To, the intended recipient, and the
timestamp should be correctly formated.
#3: Use a decent email client, not one that is used commonly by spammers. That
way, your messages should be correct from the technical point of view and so
won't trip the wire.
#4: Don't encode your messages unless you really need to.
#5: Do NOT add a statement in your .sig saying that you're not sending spam.
Spammers always do this and your messages will be flagged. In fact, don't add
any irrelevant info to your signature, who cares if you scan for viruses and
trojans, I do that at this end, before emails are opened.
#6: Write in proper language. Don't use ALL CAPS, don't add huge
amounts of space between lines, and don't odd characters and hacker speak to try
and look sm@rt
#7: Don't send html emails from MS Word. Its coding is crap and looks
tremendously spammy, moreover don't make any text invisible in your html emails.
Better still, use ascii only.
#8: Avoid chatting about spammy subjects. Do you really need to discuss your new
Rolex
watch or your sexual activities, drugs, debt treatment, porn, erection problems
(unless you've got nothing else to talk about, of course!)
#9: Don't use 'bulk-emailing' programs. These stand out a mile to
most spam filters and get a heavy weighting, especially if you really have to
tell someone about using your Rolex to solve your erection problems.
#10: Final tip, test your email setup against known systems running spam
filters, such as SpamAssassin, if you get a bounce, study the headers and try to
work out what it is that was bouncing you. I did some press release writing for
a major publisher recently and was getting bounced repeatedly. Turns out they
were filtering the subject line "Press Release". Clever...
More on avoiding false positives when sending messages can be found
in the
SpamAssassin Wiki on which this top ten tips list was loosely based. Of course,
if you're really sending spam, stop it right now! It's a pain in the effin'
butt.