| If you use the POP email capability of the hosting | | | | names at any domain they target. So, while I am |
| company where your web site resides, there is a | | | | sleeping or working, some spammer selling a breast |
| good chance that you may have overlooked an | | | | enhancement potion will be generating hundreds of |
| easily cured spam problem. | | | | emails for "lucy (at) jonathanginsberg dot com" or |
| Most hosting companies include 50 or 100 email | | | | "mary (at) jonathanginsberg dot com." All of these |
| accounts with any hosting plan offered. Multiple email | | | | spam emails, end up in my default account - "jonath" |
| accounts can come in very handy - you can create | | | | - the one that I never check. |
| separate email destinations for various functions such | | | | Fast forward a year and my hosting company calls to |
| as new orders, customer service, technical questions. | | | | say that my account is out of space. My legitimate |
| If you use email accounts in addition to the default | | | | emails start to bounce. Why - because my hosting |
| email account created when you set up your hosting | | | | account is full of all that spam. |
| plan, you could unknowingly find yourself with a big | | | | This situation actually happened to me and I ended |
| spam problem. | | | | up with almost thirteen thousand spam emails. |
| Here is an example. Let's say that I purchase hosting | | | | Here's how to prevent this problem from happening: |
| for my website domain called When this hosting plan | | | | 1. when you create your hosting account, change the |
| is set up, a default email account called jonath (at) | | | | default email box to a name that you will actually use. |
| was set up automatically by the hosting company's | | | | If you can use a "." do so - i.e., tom.smith (at) as |
| software. | | | | opposed to "tom (at) If possible, put a number in |
| Being the business tychoon that I am, I decide that I | | | | your email address - spam generation programs |
| am not going to use "jonath" as my email address , | | | | usually create only names. |
| but instead would prefer to set up three other | | | | 2. ask your hosting company to change the setting |
| accounts: "orders (at) jonathanginsberg dot com," | | | | for emails addressed to names other than those that |
| "techsupport (at) jonathanginsberg dot com," and | | | | you specifically set up. Instead of having those emails |
| "owner (at) jonathanginsberg dot com." I therefore | | | | forwarded to you, have them discarded. Most |
| set up POP accounts for each of these three email | | | | systems have a setting called "blackhole" or "bounce." |
| addresses and I commence to run my business. | | | | 3. change the setting on your email client (Outlook, |
| Since I am not using "jonath (at) jonathanginsberg | | | | Thunderbird, etc.) to provide that email messages are |
| dot com" I don't set up a POP account and I basically | | | | not to be left on the server or at best, they should |
| forget that this email account even exists. | | | | be left on the server for only a day or two. |
| This is where my problem starts. Unless I designate | | | | 4. once or twice a year, call your hosting company to |
| otherwise, the "jonath" address is the default | | | | ask about your disk usage. If you see that a lot of |
| address for my account. All emails not addressed to | | | | your disk space is allocated to an email account, you |
| one of my three active email accounts will be | | | | know that you have a problem. |
| automatically directed to the jonath folder. | | | | It is truly unfortunate that business owners have to |
| Spammers, as you may know, use computer | | | | waste time dealing with spam issues. A little |
| programs to generate thousands of emails to random | | | | prevention is this area goes a long way. |