Practically Eliminate Spam With Gmail … Even if You Have Your Own Domain
By Michael Pollock in Software
If you’re sick of spam email and everything it takes to control it, it’s time you signed up for a Gmail account. I’ve been using Gmail for a little over a year, and it’s practically eliminated spam email for me. Sure, a few sneak through now and again, but nothing like the hundreds of bizop, porn, SEO and other spam messages I used to receive DAILY. It got to a point where I couldn’t let my daughter use the computer until I first had a chance to sanitize my Outlook Express inbox.
Anti-Spam Software Stinks
I had tried a few different spam filters, like Vanquish, but none of them really eliminated the spam problem. Yes, they “controlled” the problem, but they also gave me an additional task of checking the emails they filtered out to make sure none of them were messages I really wanted, which happened more often than I liked. I was still a victim to spam. Plus, there was the annual subscription fee. Not much, mind you - Vanquish is about 25.00 per year - but in a small business, why spend money when you don’t have to?
But Gmail Isn’t as Professional Looking as a Me@MyDomain.com Emaill Address
I know what some of you are thinking. “I can’t use Gmail. I have my own domain name, and it wouldn’t look professional using a me@gmail.com email address.” I know this because I just had that conversation with my best friend, a small business owner with her own website and corresponding email address (she’s now a happy Gmail user).
Never fear, you can still use Gmail and it’s super spam filtering mojo. All you have to do is forward your mydomain.com email to Gmail. I have 5 different email addresses, and they all dump into my Gmail account. Gmail filters out the spam, and I get my real, spam-free messages downloaded into Outlook Express.
You can also set up Gmail to reply to messages using another email address. In other words, if someone sends an email to michael@solostream.com, it goes into my Gmail account. When I reply to the message Gmail will automatically use michael@solostream as the reply address, rather than my savvysolo@gmail.com address.
What Else Can Gmail Do?
If the spam filtering feature isn’t enough to convince you, there are some other cool features I love about Gmail. Like the ability to search past email messages. See, you can set Gmail to keep an archive copy of all messages you receive, and if you ever need to track down a certain message, you just use Gmail’s search function to find it. It’s just like doing a Google search but only on your email inbox.
Also, the archive and search features allow me to have two copies of all email messages. One on Gmail (accessible from any computer with an Internet connection) and another copy on my own hard-drive at the home office.
And storage space isn’t a problem, because Gmail gives you more than 2 gigabytes of storage. I’m currently using about 10% of the storage space Gmail has given me. With all that space, you can also use Gmail as a temporary file storage server. Again, let’s say you’re away from your main computer, and you find a file you want to keep. Just do a draft Gmail message, attach the file and save it in your draft folder. When you get back to your main machine, go ahead and download the file to your hard drive.
I could go on and on about Gmail, but I won’t. Do yourself a favor, and get a Gmail account. If you need an invitation (you can’t open an account without one), email me, and I’ll send you one.
For more Gmail tips, check out Jim’s Gmail Tips, as well as the tons of great Gmail tips, tricks and hacks from Lifehacker.com.
Update 07/27/06: This timely article just appeared on BBC News: More than 95% of e-mail is ‘junk’ .
On Jul 28, 2006, Blaine Moore said:
You can get around having to forward your domain emails to a gmail account by using their new gmail for domains service:
https://www.google.com/hosted/FAQ
On Jul 28, 2006, Michael said:
oh yea. i saw that a few months back, but it’s so easy for me to forward my email icouldn’t see a reason to use it.
am i missing something blaine? is there another reason to go that route vs just forwarding?
thanks - michael
On Aug 2, 2006, TechZ said:
Microsofts Live.com services also allow you to setup @mydomain.com addy’s with them.
http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5562758a-4e53-4bf5-9ba0-607d0404c321
from http://ideas.live.com/?mkt=en-us
Z
On Aug 29, 2006, Kelly said:
Nice idea. I’ve pondered this very thing. Although, I’m still using my domain e-mail. Here’s a tip if you want to use a spam filter in Outlook (or OE): try Cloudmark’s SpamNet. It’s a plugin for Outlook and works VERY well. I’ve used it for several years and I’m extremely confident.
If you’re not familiar with it, check it out. It’s rules are not based on what “they” think spam is, it’s by user votes.
fyi - My false-positives are
On Dec 15, 2006, B. Callam said:
I am frustrated with the Drafts gmail takes. Sometimes it ignores the rest of my mail and sends just what it took.
How can I stop Drafts unless I want to use it?
On Jan 10, 2007, LM said:
This is an email complaint I sent to Gmail in June of 2006:
I got a Gmail account about a year ago and never used it, never gave the address to anyone. I decided to start using it again, went into my inbox today for the first time in a year or more and saw 60+ spam emails! Most of them were already in the Gmail Spam folder so I just deleted them all. But still! I find this shocking. I have two Yahoo email addresses – that I HAVE given out to numerous people and websites – and I hardly ever get spam at those addresses! I check those accounts maybe once a month and there will only be 1 or 2 spams in there at most. How could I possibly have more than 60 spam emails in my Gmail box when I’ve never given this address to anyone? If you figure that over a year, that’s an average of maybe 6 spams every month. That’s triple what I get at Yahoo with two accounts that are widely used. Are you blocking any spam at all? If so, you’re letting WAY too much crap through.
***
I sent this email a minute later, that same day:
This is an addendum to a message sent just a minute ago. WOW – I just went in to my Gmail spam folder and saw your statement that 30-day old emails sitting in the spam folder are automatically deleted. So the 60 emails I saw in my spam folder this evening were just from ONE MONTH??? That’s nearly 60 times as much spam as I get at my widely-used Yahoo addresses! I would like to start using Gmail more, but I have some serious doubts now.
***
My posting today (Jan 10, 2007):
I checked my Gmail account for the first time in 6 months and found about 10 spams in my inbox and 213 (!!!) in my spam folder. If the automatic monthly purging of the spam folder is still intact at Gmail, then this means those 200+ spams came in just this month!!
Three of the emails in my inbox were phishing schemes, exploiting PayPal – I know they are phishing because PayPal does not have my Gmail email address. Know how many messages were in my inbox sent by someone I know? ZERO, because to date, I have STILL never given out my Gmail address to anyone.
This is inexcusable. I get almost no spam at my Yahoo addresses. The only thing I get outside of personal emails at Yahoo are marketing emails from companies where I already make online purchases on a regular basis using those addresses. No emails from strange companies I’ve never purchased anything from. No porn, no Viagra emails. Yet plenty of these in Gmail!
So until Gmail does a better job of filtering spam, I will continue to use my Yahoo email addresses.
Some people seem to have the opposite experience from me. Some people say they get lots of spam at Yahoo and very little at Gmail. It’s very bizarre.
On Feb 17, 2007, Sean said:
To me Gmail has the worst anti-spam functionality among major free email services.
Actually that’s why I’m here - I’ve been looking if on the Internet if I’m the only Gmail user for which their lame anti-spam functionality has rendered the product/service utterly useless. It’s been like that from day one and now that it’s public/non-beta, it’s going to get only worse. I am sick and tired on spending my time looking for that message that’s not spam in my Inbox.
On Apr 18, 2007, Séamus said:
Hi,
The issue that I have is how when I send an e-mail from Gmail using one of my non-Gmail accounts, the recepient is alerted to my Gmail address, which I may not necessarily want them to see! For example, some versions of Microsoft Outlook display “From yourusername@gmail.com on behalf of customaddress@domain.com.” This looks really unprofessional when I send it via my business domain e-mail account.
Please let me know if there’s a way around this.
Thanks.
On Jan 27, 2008, Jennifer said:
I am another gmail user like Sean here and I too am sick and tired of the gmail spam. Yahoo has a much better way to manage spam than gmail does. Gmail should pick up some tips from yahoo.