Normally, I check my spam folder everyday to see if any legit emails got flagged as spam by mistake. However, for the past few days, I have completely forgotten about it. I think this was due to my recent upgrade to Office 2007 (MS sent me a free copy). I guess I spent the past few days getting to know all the fancy new features that the spam folder kinda went invisible. By the time I finally got around to checking the junk email files, there were over 2,000 emails in it.
At first I thought about just hitting the Empty “Junk Email” Folder button, but decided to go through all the spam instead. An hour later, I recovered about 25 legit emails, including 12 make money online reviews. That means the review backlog just got another batch added.
It’s amazing the level of spam I get on a daily basis. I have a spam killer at the server level and at the MS Outlook level and those spammers still get through. I know that MS is working on a new email system that they claim will stop spam cold and kill the entire spam industry. However, it’s still a few years away.
I need to find a better spam filtering solution. The current setup is nice but because I have the security settings at the highest level, some legit emails will get flagged. I could lower the security but then more spam will show up in my Inbox and enough get through as it is.
If you sent me a review recently and haven’t seen it on the blog, wait until batch 81. If you still don’t see it, then email me again. I’ll be checking the spam folder more often.
Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...
Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.
One of the most common complaint (or excuse) I hear from potential new bloggers is they don’t know how to install WordPress. Terms like FTP and CPanel are like a foreign language and setting up a database might as well be setting up the space shuttle for a launch. Because of the technology barrier, many would-be bloggers never start their blogs...
{ 76 comments }
I dread the times I actually got to sift through my spam folder. You gotta do what you gotta do though, right?
I don’t dread that, that is why I go for them first.
The strange truth for me is that: I ckeckthru my spam folder FIRST before going to my inbox. 5% of the Spam msgs are always genuine mails. What I do is to move them to the inbox before hitting the ‘Empty’ button.
My inbox is always enjoyment for me, and don’t want to spoil that fun with any spam interruptions.
Host your email on GMail with Google Apps for your domain. This significantly cuts down on any spam and let’s through legitimate email. I use this with Thunderbird and I hardly ever see any spam. Legitimate email is also rarely marked as spam.
Agreed – google seems to do a pretty swell job.
just stick with Gmail…it gives the least amount of problems
Haha, aren’t you popular
Ahhh, why dont i ever get anything free
You just got a free link with this comment.
That really sucks John, I have the same problem, but not with 2000 mails,, only 20
i concur with ankur…
still one luv john !!
The problem is that with subjects like “make money online”, legit business emails will look extremely similar to many spam emails with similar subjects.
I know that several spam filters raise red flags for words and phrases like “free”, “money”, “make money”. Since this is what your blog is about, any spam filter is going to have a hard time figuring out what’s spam and what isn’t.
If you speak of the blog, Askimet lets you sleep assured. That too without chicken-leg CAPTCHA. And for e-mails, i suppose the Outlook 2007 john got *Must* be somewhat good!
Hello, Ankur …
Let me just get this straight, okay?
Are you saying that, if you have the Askimet plugin, then you don’t CAPTCHA?
What does “chicken-leg” mean
Regards, Elizabeth …
I think a couple of my emails went straight to the spam folder lol
The same goes for Akismet Spam in Wordpress. You need to regularly check it, or some good comments get lost in all the spam.
Found a comment by Martin Reed stuck away between the spam. Good thing I always check my spam first.
I guess I’ll have to be more diligent about that. I almost never find a legit comment in Akismet Spam. I really love reading those one page, 200 link spam message. Do those guys really think they’re going to get through?
If they had brains, you wouldent find viagra links on a single ladies’s blog or golf clubs ads on a tennis site
This is in reply to http://tinyurl.com/25v5pu, which turned out to be closed to more comments. Maybe it would be all right to put it here?
———————————————–
Hello, John …
May I ask a question about something you said above about a “no-follow” tag?
I got the impression that, if I post a comment here on your blog like this, there will not be a link back to my website because you have this thing called a “no-follow” tag turned on, is that right?
Forum posts do not have “no-follow” tags, correct? Only blogs? But not all blogs? Not all the time?
You did also say that “the links on the Top Commentators are full links without a no-follow tag. That means you’ll get loved by Google as well as traffic!”
Is there some way for a regular person such as myself who’s not a “techie” to determine if the blog they’re about to comment on has a “no-follow” tag or not?
In a forum, you know, one is welcome to put one’s link in one’s sig file as a “thank you” for contributing to the community, but what I think I hear you saying, here, is that such a “thank you” isn’t possible on a blog with a “no-follow” tag.
Is that true?
And what it seems to mean is that, although readers of one’s comment are at liberty to click on one’s name, if they wish, and thus visit one’s website, the “spiders” are not going to connect the two, is that right?
Thank you very much in advance for clearing this up for me.
Warmest regards …
Elizabeth
P.S. Also, how are all the people above getting their picture in their comments?
Pictures are due to MyBlogLog. When you sign in, then comment here, your picture (avtar) appears.
Hello, Ankur …
Just a note to say that I just now figured out what you were saying about the avatars!
Regards, Elizabeth …
Hello, Ankur …
Any idea why a black head is now in place of my white flower?
I’m not sure how to troubleshoot something like this.
Regards, Elizabeth …
Hey Elizabeth,
You could look at the source code of the page you’re on, to see if nofollow links exist there. After opening the source code, press [CTRL]+F and type nofollow. If you get any hits that look something like rel=’nofollow’, then that’s a nofollow link.
Clear? Hope so.
Walter
Hello, Walter …
eeeek! I went to your site and it’s in a foreign language! Where in the world are you from?
Anyway, thank you very much for this controlF+nofollow tip! I tested it out on a couple of blogs but didn’t turn up anything.
I’m going to keep testing it, though, until I turn up something because right now I feel like maybe I might not have tested it right so as soon as I find one, I’ll know I’ve got the hang of it.
That is really very clever of you!
Say! That gives me an idea!
Maybe I could write a little article about this procedure.
Could I ask … what is the protocol here for corresponding by email? Is it okay for me to send you an email and, if so, how?
Thanks in advance for your answer
Regards, Elizabeth …
Damn! wordpress has it all! it makes me and my blog feel small!
I’m always amazed at gmail’s spam filter. I never had any legit e-mails in my spam folder, and maybe once a month a spam e-mail goes to my inbox. So much better then what I was used to when I was using hotmail.
What google does, it does the best
Thats for sure..
I feel for you.
I get well over 1,000 spam emails a day and even more spam comments on my blog!
I got about 100 spam emails in Chinese (weird symbols) a day >_>.
That’s a lot? How long have you had your email address? Every few years I switch my business-type emails to a clean, new address and once the old one is getting nothing but spam I drop it.
John, with the number of e-mails you get, you probably spend more time answering/deleting those mails.
A post with the way you spend your time would be a great insight!
What do you others have to say
Hello, Ankur …
Now, aren’t you clever. [b]Let me see if I can do that, too.[/b]
Regards, Elizabeth …
Does the spam come in waves for you too? Sometimes I’ll get a bunch of it, then it’ll let up for a bit, but it comes back. Do I need to keep installing new anti-spam plugins?
Try Gmail. And as regards to blogs, Askimet is probably excellent if not *perfect*
just remembered, I havent checked my spam folder for weeks !!!
Hello John, I saw you have over 2000 mybloglot members – Thats great.
I never go sifting through my spam email. I mean between my Gmail account, Yahoo! Mail, and all my work emails. I decide if it isn’t from somebody I know personally, then it’s not very important. Pretty bad logic I know, but I don’t get much “legit” spam email.
I use an antispam appliance by Solinus called MailFoundry. It cost a couple of K but it is for business. It filters out emal and puts all the spam in to a quarantine email that I check each day. I just quickly scroll through the list of emails caught and release any that were incorrectly stopped. I havent had to release any for a few months though.
Accepting free software from Microsoft? Wow, you ARE evil!
I’m not getting spam at the moment, but I think a spambot is masking my domain, as I’m getting thousands of “Mail Delivary Failed” returns. Anybody else getting that?
Yahoo SPAM Filter is awful!! I get like 2-3 legit emails in there every day.
Get Gmail for your domain, John. It’s the best solution out there…
Yeh, google apps will give it Free, that will score you more
points 
Hello, gdog …
You say, “Get Gmail for your domain, John. It’s the best solution out there…”
May I ask …
How does one do that?
My website is hosted with IXhosting and my husband set me up so that IXhosting is also my ISP as far as *sending* email is concerned. As far as *receiving* it, this I do through a local ISP near where I live that was the first service in my area and I like it because I can go pull their beards if something goes wrong.
So, now, tell me:
How would I insert gmail into that mix?
Do I call up IXhosting and say, “Substitute Google’s gmail service for your service?”
I’m getting ready to launch a blog, is why I’m asking. Are you basically recommending that all mail having to do with a blog go through gmail for some good and sufficient reason?
Thanks in advance for clearing this up.
Regards, Elizabeth …
Hi John –
I could be wrong but it looks like you may have been spanked by Google…
I don’t see you in the serps for “make money online”.
Also when you do a “site command” site:www.johnchow.com ur home page is not at the top of the list. I hope it’s not the case but my experience is that this could be the beginning of a G penalty – I hope I’m wrong – If I’m right email me if you want some of my input on what happened.
Craig
Yep, agree with the other posters. Gmail does an excellent job of recognizing spam. I redirect a bunch of own domain accounts to my gmail address, and it deals with 99.5% of the spam I get!
Yahoo! is less than 80% and don’t even talk about Hotmail or Hinet (both of which got so much spam within HOURS of creating an account…!)
Yep, at the moment, Gmail is better than anything I’ve tried! I no longer bother with Outlook or Express or whatever it’s currently called. The anti-spam measures are just ineffective! I’m also not going to spend hours fiddling with filters only to find them also ineffective.
Get gmail, set up popmail, redirect ALL your accounts to your SECRET gmail account, then access it via whatever client you like! Works like a charm.
Kenneth
Have you tried Spam Fighter (http://www.spamfighter.com/)? It caught spam very well when I was using Outlook. There is a free trial version, and the commercial one costs around $30.
Agreed about gmail’s spam filter. It’s crazy… If only it could grab those lottery prizes of mine…
John, very simple man, open a gmail account. Then setup a forward on your mail server to forward all of your mail to your gmail account. Link your gmail account to your server mail account (which takes 2 minutes and its free) so you can send emails out from your gmail account as John@johnchow.com, then watch the spam go bye bye and your good email stay intact. I have this setup for numerous websites, and still nothing gets lost but the spam. If you need help setting it up lemme know.
I dont get as much spam i hate gmail :\ so i wont go with them I dont mind the few spam things i get.. i just delete them and unsubscribe for those spam things
and really after taking hte time to unsubscribe my spam amount really plummeted
I might explore SPAMARREST, anyone else using it?
Hey John, looks liek you’ve been banned from google. You aren’t showing up for anything even the search John Chow.
Where are you looking?
I get 524,000 results for “john chow”
See http://tinyurl.com/2frwmw
site:http://www.johnchow.com
Spamarrest, never heard of it…any good anyone?
I was just in contact with them and it looks like we might be able to get a special offer. Fingers crossed.
John,
I hope my email — that alerts you of a potential problem with your linking strategy — did not end up in your spam box. :
Hello, Hamlet …
Can you tell me, please, how are you coding your anchor text in your post?
Are you using bulletin board code, or regular html?
I would really appreciate knowing!
Regards, Elizabeth …
Spam arrest looks pretty good. If you do want to test it out John I have an affiliate code to bounce of you…..
I am going to send them an email and advise them to consider a review from you also .. Im sure it would fit within the
Evil 
scheme of things.
anyone else want to test it pop by for a visit and use the contact form and I will do an invite. It has some really great tools from what I see
Stephen
Steph..How much do we have to pay for Spamarrest? It sounds interesting..could you give me the affiliate link?
Also,I dislike the new MSN Live Hotmail..it is sometimes so retarded to block my inbox message contents and treat them as spam when they are not…I still prefer Gmail!
John Great Website first and foremost.
Second would you mind contacting me through my contact page until I hear back from John and Spam Arrest?
Back to your site.
Shoot me over that email and I will add you to the “safe” list…..
John I got 2 words for you….
Spam Arrest.
Me and Tim Ferriss both give it a thumbs up.
I got over 740 spams yesterday because of my new Young Hot Blogs contest, all this weird porno spam and such…Spam Arrest cleaned it like a soapy rag on the oily chain on my Harley!
Have you considered outsourcing your email to a virtual assistant John? Your life will get a whole lot more fun!
Spam’s never going away. Gate’s been trying to get rid of it for more than a decade.
Its only going to get more intense as the years go on, meaning more sorting through useless crap to find that one important email >_>
How do you set up a server side spam filter?
Hello, John …
In regard to “comment spam” … would one of those little boxes with weird letters in it help? Like they have over at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/ ??? Where you have to type in the weird letters before the system will accept your post? Is there maybe a plug-in for that for WordPress?
Regards, Elizabeth …
Those verification codes do help minimize spam.
Hi John – I used to use SpamBayes which was an open source solution that worked very well with Outlook. The new Outlook though doesn’t work with SpamBayes so I am on the hunt for a new solution.
Are you just using the Outlook 2007 junk email settings and putting them on high or are you using a plugin to help catch some of the junk?
solution – have gmail to host your domain email. I tried it before, and it is just great
Another way is to have mail forwarded to gmail. then download use POP from gmail. and use SMTP from your own hosting server.
Do you have to use gmail for domains to do this, or will their regular mail system do it?
Gmail is by far the best at stopping spam in my opinion.
I agree. Also I’d say Yahoo! is the worst >_>.
Hey John, get your spam filtering for free! Mailfoundry gives the first 10 users of its hosted anti spam service free of charge! I use the service and while they do require a credit card for signup, theres no charge for 10 or less users. Very cool.
http://www.mailfoundry.com
Looks like they’ve changed their website a bit since I signed up, but click on the “hosted anti spam” under the “anti spam” menu.
The great thing about whatever these guys do to kill spam is that it doesnt snag real emails. I have no idea how they do it, but it has been a lifesaver to not have to hunt for lost emails.
I hate it when I just fully delete my spam folder and miss something incredibly important…
I like Cloudmark Desktop for Outlook. It’s kind of like digg for spam. Users vote on which emails are spam (when you click “block” for any one email, it counts as a vote), and if an email gets enough votes it’s filtered. I get over a thousand spam emails per day, it handles them easily, and with zero false positives. A few spam schemes still get through, but less than 10 per day usually, and more than worth it to never (ever) have to check the spam folder (in fact, I have it sent directly to the deleted folder, which I set to empty on closing Outlook).