Question asked by a reader:

I receive allot of spam recently using the from: Linkedin Communication and to: info@a-company-name.com or some other junk in front of @ a-company-name.com

Do you think it comes from Linkedin link on home page or is it something else?

Answer:

The info @ a-company-name.com email addresses are spam magnets.

Even if you don’t post that email address, the spammers use it to send every url an email because they know there are a lot of people that have an info @ company email address. They also use a means of targeting a URL with a dictionary attack. So, if people leave a default (catch all) email address, and the spammers use any type of attack, they can find unlimited email address openings to send spam. This is why it is never a good idea to use a “catch all” email address. Not only will it be a bad experience for the user having to go searching through the tons of spam, but it will simply be an undo strain on the hosting server. This is why, many servers and hosting companies are limiting this type of setup. Additionally, if you choose to run this way, you run the risk of alienating yourself with the hosting company. In essence, they won’t like you very much and run the risk of having your website be transferred over to a much poorer server environment, one that has other less than desired operators and webmasters.

Once an email address is in the spammers database, it is impossible to get it cleaned, because other spammers get it from others online.

I strongly urge you to guard your email addresses carefully online. Use of Javascript, a picture image of the @ email address, or formmails are some of the things you can use to be proactive to protect your emails from the spam bots (email scavenging programs that automatically harvest email addresses online). However, even having guarded your email address, I strongly suggest using spam detection, or filtering it through Google Apps for email, or running it directly through Gmail (by adding an account in the Gmail settings), or other options like that for the long haul.

Do the right thing, and don’t use a catch all email address. If you have a number of email addresses that you want to use as throw away emails for signing up for things online, do a forward of those select throw away emails to your main email address instead. Then you can create email filters to place them in folders or assign labels. You can also add address aliases for your main email address. Read about on how to use an email address alias name.

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