Are you getting too much spam? We all are, but if you're a webmaster word spam takes on a whole new meaning.

It's not uncommon for luckiest of email users to receive a dozen or so spam messages each day, while those of us who aren't so fortunate receive hundreds.

The casual home user tends to be more fortunate, so this article is devoted to those of us with one or more website because webmasters are getting hit by spam ... and hit hard.

The reason ... a website doesn't do you much good if you don't give potential customers a way to contact you, and that normally means posting an email address on your website, where it is vulnerable to email address harvesting tools used by spammers. Domain registration records are also a common source used by spammers.

In order to conduct business online you now need to sift through endless barrage of offers for herbal viagra, pornography, pyramid schemes, and so on.

With such a large volume of spam to contend with, it's likely you've lost sales due to missing important emails that simply floated away in this sea of spam. And there's no way to really calculate cost of that lost business. If you've missed email then how can you ever know how much business you've lost?

If you want to solve problem, you need to be proactive because sad reality is that if you do nothing, it will only get worse until finally it reaches point where your email account has become totally and completely unmanageable. Fortunately there are a few options available to you.

-------------------------------------------------- Securing Your Domain Registration Against Spammers --------------------------------------------------

First let's address whois database, which is a publicly accessible database in which your domain registration record is listed ... and that includes your email address. It's not uncommon now for people to be spammed at a brand new email address within hours of registering a new domain.

Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com is a domain registrar that now offers private domain registrations. At time of writing this article, they are only registrar who currently offers this service. Hopefully in time, other registrars will pick up on this idea and offer service too.

With a private domain registration, which costs only a few dollars more than a regular registration, your contact information including your email address will not be publicly accessible in whois database.

That's guaranteed to cut down on spam quite significantly as this very important source of addresses that spammers use, will no longer provide your address to them.

If you don't wish to obtain a private domain registration, then there is another option that will be equally effective. Set up a new email address that you use only for purpose of providing registration information for your domain name. You can easily scan email sent to that address for messages from your registrar, and delete rest without having to read it.

-------------------------------------------------- Securing Your Website Against Spammers --------------------------------------------------

The other major source, and by far biggest source of email addresses for spammers is of course mailto links on your own website. Email address harvesting or extraction software as it's known is cheap, easy to use, and readily available ... and it's very effective. That means there are a lot of spammers out there with easy access to your email address.

Chances are hundreds or even thousands of spammers using such software have already harvested your address. And what can you do about this? You need to provide a way for your customers to reach you by email, or you'll lose business. There are steps you can take to prevent your email address from being harvested and used by spammers though, while still providing legitimate visitors to your site with a way to email you.

One solution is to make all mailto links on your site point to a form instead, which will still provide a means for people to send you email. Provided you use a CGI script that doesn't require address to be embedded within form itself, you can shield your address from email address extractors.

1. Use good data. Only rent email addresses that have a verifiable opt-in status. Response rates are generally 10 times greater using good opt-in data rather than opt-out.

2. Keep message simple. Email message broadcasting should be seen as a means to an end - end being a contact with your prospect or a visit to your website. Long messages raise threshold to response. Keep reason for emailing to forefront of message.

3. Keep creative simple. Try to ensure whole message can be seen on one screen, including response mechanisms. Don't use lots of different font sizes and typefaces - it confuses and detracts from message. Make sure that graphics are hosted so that file size is kept to a minimum - preferably less than 24kb.

4. Create a good Subject Line. Give recipient a reason to open your message. Poorly considered subject lines will negate any good creative or offer, as recipient may not even see it. Subject lines should be intriguing and not too salesmanlike.