How to Handle and Reduce Spam Effectively

Spam emails — unsolicited and often unwanted — continue to plague inboxes worldwide. While there's no perfect, permanent fix, adopting a few best practices can drastically reduce the flood of junk in your inbox. Here's how to take back control.

1. Avoid Publishing Your Email Address Publicly

Spammers use bots to crawl websites looking for the “@” symbol — their gateway to harvesting email addresses. If you publicly post your email address on your website, it’s likely to get scooped up.

Better Alternative:
Use a contact form instead of a mailto: link. This avoids exposing your email in the website source code.

2. Use Contact Forms Instead of Direct Email Links

A contact form hides your email address from bots and gives you control over what information users must fill in. Tools like CGIEmail or modern alternatives like Formspree, Google Forms, or Contact Form 7 (for WordPress) are easy to set up and effective.

Bonus: You can block spam submissions with CAPTCHA or form validations.

3. Never Click “Unsubscribe” Links from Unknown Senders

Unless you explicitly remember subscribing to a list, do not click unsubscribe links in spam emails. Spammers often use these as “bait” to verify your address is active — leading to even more spam.

4. Don’t Forward Chain Letters or Viral Warnings

Forwarding chain emails or fake virus warnings can unintentionally share your and your contacts' email addresses with spam networks.

If in doubt, check warnings at:
https://www.snopes.com
https://www.virustotal.com

5. Use Disposable and Forwarding Email Addresses Strategically

Here’s how to stay a step ahead of spammers:

• Create disposable email addresses for online registrations.
• Use forwarding aliases like amazon@yourdomain.com when signing up at websites. If that alias starts receiving spam, simply disable or redirect it.
• Set up a “spam-catcher” inbox, like junk@yourdomain.com, and forward all suspicious or unused aliases there.

Pro Tip: Use a different alias for WHOIS records of your domain to track spam origins and rotate it periodically.

6. Enable and Fine-Tune Spam Filters

Most hosting providers, like Indichosts.net, offer built-in spam filtering at the server level. These typically rely on global blacklists to reject known spammers.

Be Aware:

• No filter is 100% accurate. False positives and negatives happen.
• Server-side filters may permanently delete spam — check your spam settings to allow quarantine or review before deletion.

For full control, consider installing a desktop spam filter (like SpamSieve or MailWasher) or use advanced email services (e.g., ProtonMail, Google Workspace with custom filters).

7. Bonus: Email Best Practices for Prevention

• Use CAPTCHA on forms to reduce bot submissions.
• Avoid replying to spam — even insults confirm your address is active.
• Train your filters by marking messages as spam or not-spam regularly.
• Consider a professional spam filtering service like:
  • SpamExperts
  • MXGuardDog
  • CleanMail

Final Thoughts

While you can’t eliminate spam entirely, you can outsmart the spammers by combining these methods. The key is to be proactive: hide your email, segment your usage, monitor your aliases, and rely on smart filtering.

Need help setting up contact forms, aliases, or spam filters on your Indichosts.net account? Just ask — we’re here to help.