Not Being Filtered

These days nearly everyone uses some kind of anti-spam technology. It may be deployed on your upstream ISP's mail server, your company's exchange server or a spam blocker program on your desktop.

When people send email, they rarely consider the realty that a lot of these filters have accuracy problems. In fact, nearly all spam filters will block legitimate email from time to time.

The good news is that as email sender there are a lot of steps you can take to help make sure your email gets through.

Don't send email with large image attachments. As someone who provides technical support, this can be a mixed bag. Sometimes a nice screenshot of the problem can be very telling about the underlying issue. If you do need to send a large image, send the recipient a second shorter message letting them know you have. This way they'll know to check their anti-spam product if it doesn't show up.

Don't send email messages with heavy formatting. This includes using the "send webpage as email" function in Internet Explorer and other browsers. Use of tables or excessive font variations looks questionable. A lot of spammers spend time making their email messages look like brochures. If your email looks like a brochure, it probably looks like spam.

Don't assume that e-invitations or other third-party mail-sending software really made it to your friends inbox. E-vites and similar look like spam for the reasons mentioned above.

Don't use Incredimail or similar products. Enough said.

Avoid email messages which include a large number of long URL's. For instance, an email message with links to 12 different Ebay auctions may look suspicious.

Avoid sending email heavy in content typically found in spam. Ranting about the virtues of certain investments, discussing mail enhancement products or bragging about your new imitation Rolex may get you filtered. If you feel compelled to discuss these things - try to get on your friend's "whitelist" (see below).

Do remind your friends to put you on their "whitelist." Almost every spam protection system provides for a list of email addresses that can bypass the filtering. It should be noted that some whitelists may be ignored if the message contains a possible virus such as an executable attachment.

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