9 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
9 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

I have a Spam Trap in my list

by bydomino
6 replies
Hey Warriors,

I have a client that I wrote a list system for them about 6 years ago.
They are not using this list for sales but for information dissemination. They create reports and send a links to these reports on a daily basis. The list is about 2500 in size.

Everything has been fine until about a month ago when the server they are leasing form me was placed on a black list. I checked the server for any issues and determined all was fine: No virus, malware or gremlins in the house.

I also determined that even though they run about 12 domains on this server it is the only one that is sending email. To make matter even better for me the server does not even listen on an SMTP port.

So I requested to be de-listed at the black list. With in a few days I was back on. They gave the reason an email was sent to a Spam trap.

The ways I can think about getting a Spam trap in your list are these:

1.Not using confirmed opted-in and other permission based maintenance
2.Harvesting addresses
3.Purchasing email addresses
4.Renting email addresses
5.Using an email Append service
6.Deliberately added to your list
7.Using an old list

We I am sure we have not done 2, 3, 4, 5
So that leaves 1, 6 and 7
I do not think 6 is the case and I know that we did not build 1
So that leaves 7 which we do have.

After looking at the list I found that many are internal company emails, I can check those to see if they are still valid.
Several email are company type, non free email systems. I figure I could grab about the last two years of these.

This leave me with the rest that I think I have to re confirm.

With this thought I wrote a much better opt in system that has an email activation opt in link using a separate serial for each user.

With this new system I plan on:
1) Setting the status of all non internal and non less than 2 year old company email to "Not approved"
2) changing the IP of the server
3) getting a Gmail account to use to re-email the Not Approved users a link where they can re opt in.

I am hoping I can clean this list and get rid of the Spam Trap

I am asking for any other suggestions, comments or ideas. Has anyone else been in this situation, what did you do?

Thanks for your help and comments,

Kevin
#list #spam #trap
  • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
    Any email that's a spam trap should be sending you the proper bounce responses telling you which emails are bad. Do you have any kind of feedback looping set up to auto scrub the list when you get bounces?
    Signature

    Fair warning: It's possible I'm arguing with you because I have nothing better to do.
    Join my free copywriting group on Facebook: http://CultOfCopy.com

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282008].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author bydomino
      Originally Posted by Colin Theriot View Post

      Any email that's a spam trap should be sending you the proper bounce responses telling you which emails are bad. Do you have any kind of feedback looping set up to auto scrub the list when you get bounces?
      Colin,

      Spam traps do not work like that. Spam traps are secret, non-published email addresses that catch some list owners by surprise. A Spam-Trap is a valid email address, used specifically to trap unsolicited email or spammers; hence the name Spam Trap

      The folks that use Spam Traps will not tell you what email address is the Spam Trap, it would get leaked out and make the trap ineffective. Many organizations use spam traps, such as large ISP's like AOL, companies that offer spam filters and organizations that specialize in email reputation.

      Often time these are old email address that some one "used to have" then a black listing service picks it up and uses it to see if list owners are keeping their list clean.

      Kevin
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282045].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Colin Theriot
        Originally Posted by bydomino View Post

        Colin,

        Spam traps do not work like that. Spam traps are secret, non-published email addresses that catch some list owners by surprise. A Spam-Trap is a valid email address, used specifically to trap unsolicited email or spammers; hence the name Spam Trap

        The folks that use Spam Traps will not tell you what email address is the Spam Trap, it would get leaked out and make the trap ineffective. Many organizations use spam traps, such as large ISP's like AOL, companies that offer spam filters and organizations that specialize in email reputation.

        Often time these are old email address that some one "used to have" then a black listing service picks it up and uses it to see if list owners are keeping their list clean.

        Kevin
        Huh. Admittedly, it's been a while since I tried to send a lot of email from my own server. I swear they had some addresses that were there just to test for bounce compliance. I know Yahoo actually had published guidelines for it, and we had delivery go way up when we started following them.

        Maybe I'm misremembering, because I had to do all manner of whitelisting and hoops at various times. I hated it, and it sort of all blends together. We eventually just outsourced it. I defer to your clearly superior knowledge.
        Signature

        Fair warning: It's possible I'm arguing with you because I have nothing better to do.
        Join my free copywriting group on Facebook: http://CultOfCopy.com

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282190].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
          I think purging the old eMails is probably the only way to go. I have spam traps on my eMail server.

          There are eMail addresses that I deliberately created as spam traps and put them on web sites to be harvested.

          There are also eMail addresses that were once in use but became overrun by spam, so I converted them to spam traps.

          It's possible that something like the latter happened to you. Someone's eMail become clogged with spam. And your company may not have eMailed them in a while, so they simply forgot to unsubscribe or tell you their new eMail address before they converted it to a spam trap.
          Signature

          Dan's content is irregularly read by handfuls of people. Join the elite few by reading his blog: dcrBlogs.com, following him on Twitter: dcrTweets.com or reading his fiction: dcrWrites.com but NOT by Clicking Here!

          Dan also writes content for hire, but you can't afford him anyway.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282242].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author bydomino
            Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

            I think purging the old eMails is probably the only way to go. I have spam traps on my eMail server.

            There are eMail addresses that I deliberately created as spam traps and put them on web sites to be harvested.

            There are also eMail addresses that were once in use but became overrun by spam, so I converted them to spam traps.

            It's possible that something like the latter happened to you. Someone's eMail become clogged with spam. And your company may not have eMailed them in a while, so they simply forgot to unsubscribe or tell you their new eMail address before they converted it to a spam trap.

            Yep I think so except all these email address get emailed just about every day. The recipients like this so they can get their reports nice an easy. Why they just do not go to the web site is, well it just is.

            SO something happed recently but I really have no idea if it is a new email or an old one.
            The users can get the info on the site but many want their daily email. I know that cleaning the list will take effort on their part so I am sure the list will shrink, in fact I believe that is what I am counting on.

            I placed this on this forum half for information and half because I am sure others here have had to deal with it.

            I was going to say that the folks on the site, that have these issues, do not want their email list to shrink but it seems to me a smaller more reliable list might be better than a large out of control list.

            Kevin
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282426].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Janice Sperry
    Since you have a great list would it work to have them confirm again? Send an email explaining they confirmed so long ago and you need to "clean up" the list. You could say that you don't want to email anyone that is no longer interested. The spam trap should be among the few that don't re-confirm.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2282471].message }}

Trending Topics