Three Faces of SPAMLike ... who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three ... The first is the Nigerian scam about helping some poor, pathetic so
Three Faces of SPAM
Like everybody who will ever read this, I get spam in my e-mail. Mine seems to fall into one of three categories. The first is the Nigerian scam about helping some poor, pathetic soul collect megabucks, supposedly from someone who has died and left a fortune. I’m not sure what is worse: that there are people desperate enough to believe those messages, or that there are people despicable enough to prey on the desperate. The net result is the despicable con the desperate into sending money which the desperate will never see again.
The second type comes from people who sound innocent enough. They have a product or a business or a service or something else that is perfectly legitimate. They surf the web, find one of my sites, find the “contact us” link, and send me information about whatever they have to offer. I suppose, in their minds, it isn’t any different than walking down the street or going through the telephone book writing down addresses, and then sending out bulk business mail with the same offer. They could get the same information for more money and less time by buying a mailing list. THAT is perfectly legitimate. Harvesting e-mail addresses off of web sites is NOT. Spam is officially defined as “unsolicited commercial electronic mail.” The key word is “unsolicited.” If I didn’t ask for it and you send it anyway, it is unsolicited. When people harvest e-mail addresses off of web sites and then send commercial messages, that, by definition, is spam. I report them to my ISP and you should, too.
The third type isn’t so innocent. These people, like the second type of people already discussed, surf the web, find sites, and harvest the e-mail addresses from the “contact us” link. Instead of starting out by sending you what they have to offer, they get devious, sneaky, and just plain under-handed. They send you a message asking for more information about whatever you have to offer on your site. When you graciously respond, it turns out they couldn’t care less about what you have to offer. The ONLY thing they want is to confirm your e-mail address so they can start to dump offers on you, hoping you will buy something from them. Nasty trick.
Let me give you an example from one that once came across my screen. It seemed to be from a nice lady with homey graphics and nice colors in her e-mail. If my memory serves me well, she even stated that she was disabled and looking for ways to earn a living off the internet. In my mind, that’s a hard combination to resist. A great deal of effort was put into this to make it sound as if she had built an internet community around her site and services. Maybe she did; I don’t know. Anyway, I was naïve enough to respond with the information she had requested. Soon solicitations for this, that, and whatever business offer, etc. began arriving in my inbox. I finally put two and two together and realized that they were from her, but I was still reluctant to report it as spam, so her messages went quietly into the trash. I mean, she seemed SO NICE! Then I got this huffy message, apparently broadcast to her entire mailing list, about how if people didn’t want to receive her messages, why didn’t they just unsubscribe, etc. It seems quite a few people had reported her as a spammer and she was getting into trouble. It was time for me to respond, so I told her, bluntly, that what she was sending out WAS spam. It was unsolicited. I never signed up to be on her mailing list, and no doubt the people who had reported her never signed up to be on her mailing list, either. I only responded to a request FROM HER for information and that in no way implied that I wanted to be on her mailing list or that I wanted to receive her offers. She must have gotten the message because I have received nothing else from her.
So how about you? Are guilty of sending out e-mail to people who did not specifically request to receive offers from you or about a business that you represent? If you go around looking for e-mail addresses to harvest for your own purposes, you are guilty of sending SPAM. Instead, post your offers on your web site and market them legitimately. It’s the right thing to do. When people fill out your form, they are giving you permission to send them information. Keep a record so you can defend yourself if they ever forget what they did.
If you are on the receiving end of unsolicited offers, go ahead and report them as spam. Don’t feel guilty; you are not the guilty party. Just make sure you really didn’t sign up for a newsletter or something and then forgot! It is sooooooooooooooo not cool to report spam that really isn’t!
Finding and Managing Quality Reciprocal Links: A Tutorial for The Newbie
All of us want to increase traffic to our web sites. It helps our search engine rankings, and is a very cost-effective way to provide us with potential new customers. One of the best, and certainly least expensive, ways to do that is by exchanging links with sites similar to our own, or that contain content our own visitors are likely to find interesting and useful. It is important to restrict our exchanges to such sites because if we indiscriminately exchange with everybody and anybody we become what is known as a “link farm” and wind up being banned by the search engines. No one wants to be banned by the search engines, so this article will discuss how to find relevant sites with whom to exchange links, and how to keep track of them after you have exchanged the links. Even though there are software programs that will do most if not all of this for you, they have various flaws and inadequacies. If you are one of those people who prefer the personal touch, this article is for you!Don’t Put All Of Your Eggs Into One Basket
Don’t Put All Of Your Eggs Into One BasketI vaguely remember a ... story from my ... It had ... to do with ... eggs to market. The main ... a little girl who thoughFixed Point of Reference
By: Sandi ... to author Frank Peretti, "A fixed point of ... for human beings is always ... that is found outside ... It has to be ... to which we can always come