Family site email tips: Reducing spam

In an effort to reduce spam management, here are some tips.

Catch me if you can

If you have or get yourself a family website(low cost now), create a secondary email address to handle spam. It will be your catch all email address. A common one would be webmaster. In doing this, all invalid emails or errors(i.e. typo) will be redirected to that address.

To share or not to share

When each members get an email address, tell them not to share it with those outside of the family or give it only to serious sites(i.e. your bank) and friends. Tell them to get a free email account like a Gmail account for the other sites(i.e. E-Cards, forums, contest, blogs ...). Also demand of their friends to respect that rule and proposed to them that they could do the same. I'm not against e-card but those site may/will collect the address and sell it, nothings for free. So, if a friend want to send a file or e-card, the Gmail account will be there. You can also use your ISP address but if you change ISP, then you will have to change your emails in forums, blogs ....

Going shopping

If they want to do online shopping, some sites to prevent fraud, may not accept free email accounts. In this case, you could setup a shopping email account(yourname_shop@yoursite.com). Some vendor may send offers or a newsletter afterward. It's very optional.

Analyze that

Install Mozilla Thunderbird(free), my favorite email client, because it has a spam filter build-in and you can manage multiple accounts at the same time. A nice thing about it is that it learns over time what you consider spam. But, always check if it's a "False-Positive" before deleting spam. A new friend email may be sent in the spam folder by mistake.

You've got mail

Here is a list of account a family member will have:

1. name@yourfamilysite.com
2. name_shop@yourfamilysite.com (optional)
3. name@yourfreeemailaccount.com or ISP but I prefer a free email account
4. name@isp.com (email (i.e. service cut, invoice, tech support...)  from their provider if not using the same ISP)

Here, 1 and 3 are the strict minimum. The 2 other accounts will depend on the person.
Person who manage the email accounts:

1. name@yourfamilysite.com
2. name_shop@yourfamilysite.com (optional)
3. webmaster@yourfamilysite.com (catch all)
4. name@yourfreeemailaccount.com or ISP but I prefer a free email account
5. name@isp.com (email (i.e. service cut, invoice, tech support...)  from your provider)

Here, 1 and 3, 4, 5  are the strict minimum. 2 will depend on the person.

Conclusion

If you do those easy steps, you will reduce your overall spam. Your are not obligated to make a site. In my case, it's too late. But I don't have much spam because I was able to use some of these rules.

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