Sending and Receiving Email Without Being Filtered

Please read the articles Better Email Gets Better Responses, Things to Consider Before Email Advertising, and Too Much Junk Mail? Tips to Reduce Spam or Junk Mail in Your Email. These articles help you read, write and understand email. This article deals specifically with problems associated with emails that may have suspicious contents, spam or viruses.

Okay, why another article about email? Since the email virus epidemic, ISPs, web hosts, companies and individuals are searching for ways to prevent viruses. There are filters that may be preventing you from sending or receiving email. Understand what conditions cause filters to decide what is bad, so you can successfully send email.

Text contents of your email can be read as spam and filtered. Keyword topics that trigger filters include porn, drugs, gambling, and get rich quick schemes. Newsletters are often mistakenly filtered, even opt-in newsletters, due to text or contents. Learn which words are popular spam words and try not to use them. If you advertise medication, you may have to mispell the word or make it appear as an image to successfully send your email.

Email headers which include your From email address and Subject line can be read as spam and filtered. Mass mailer programs are often used by spammers and discouraged by ISPs and web hosts. They place limits on the number of emails you can send from one location. Using one email address in the To field, then fifty in the CC field still adds up to fifty-one emails! That trick doesn't work. And mailers sometimes put strange characters in the subject line which says, "Delete Me, I am spam!". Be careful not to use trigger words in the subject line. Avoid all uppercase letters and overuse of punctuation!!!

HTML email for color ad promotion are common for advertisements and newsletters. They may also contain images that can be filtered. How mass mailings are sent can also trigger filtering. Many people see email with strange characters in the subject line added by mailers. It is usually spam, advertisements, junk mail or whatever you want to call it. It is usually deleted if not filtered.

Images are often sent for various reasons, work, personal, or advertising. But some people disallow sending images or attachments to save space, save load time or protect their computers from viruses. You should always scan files with Antivirus software before opening them.

Attachments can be images, Word documents, PDFs, and more. Any editable or executable document can contain a virus. We recommend sending zipped files or links to files uploaded to a server instead. Delete email from unknown sources that contain attachments. Avoid files with uncommon file extensions, PIF, SCR (screensaver), BAT, EXE (executable). Check your email with webmail instead or before using Outlook Express or another email client that downloads files. Or change your settings to disallow attachments. You can always disable this for special occasions.

Most people have seen enough junk mail to know what are common topics for spam. If you are unsure that your email will pass the test, send yourself a test email. If you get a "bounce back" message saying that your email was not successfully sent, tweak your email. Simple text email is best and works for all email clients. Include links to websites and other information. Keep your email short and simple and if your recipient's email address is valid, it should be received.

Yvette Kuhns, Power Pages Web Design, November 10, 2003

Printer Friendy Version. If this article helped you, please donate any amount via PayPal. Thank you!

If you have any questions or helpful hints to share, please email me.

Please view our list of past articles for more useful information.