Every reputable Website and SEO company in the world will only send emails from their domain name servers. For example, emails from Redback Web Solutions will always have an email address ending in redbackwebs.com.au such as info@redbackwebs.com.au.

1. Beware of Fake SEO Companies

2. These days the amount of unsolicited emails that are
being received by Businesses advertising Website
Design or Search Engine Optimisation is becoming as
bad as telemarketers claiming they are with Telstra or
Optus trying to con you to switch phone companies.
The easy way to pick the dodgy operators quickly is to
look at their email addresses.
If the email was sent from a free email service such as
Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo for example – do not reply to
them – do not trust them.

3. Every reputable Website and SEO company in the world
will only send emails from their domain name servers.
For example, emails from Redback Web Solutions will
always have an email address ending in
redbackwebs.com.au such as info@redbackwebs.com.au.
Any internet business that hides behind a free email
service smells of distrust immediately. If you reply to an
email from one of these addresses, you can almost
guarantee that you will end up on a whole stack of
mailing lists increasing the amount of spam that you
receive.

4. Personally I hate it. Redback Web Solutions would
receive at least 5 or 6 of these emails a day. As a
Company that specialises in Web Development and
Search Engine Optimisation, sending spam email to
Redback Web Solutions trying to sell SEO services or
Website design is like trying to sell sand to the Arabs!
Plus they clearly these companies or individuals
haven’t done any market research – even though they
claim in their emails that they have carefully viewed
our site.

5. If you are going to re-develop your website, or start a
marketing campaign – then only choose a reputable
company that is actually based in Australia. Not India,
not Singapore, not the US, not the Phillapines!
Here are some additional tips on identifying spam
emails and and a link on how to whitelist important
businesses so that their emails dont end up in your
junk folder if you improve your email security.

6. Protecting Against Spam Emails
Spammers collect email addresses and verify that each
address is a valid address before they start sending
unsolicited or spam messages. To reduce the
possibility of receiving spam emails, there are things
you can do to protect your email addresses and
accounts, on your computer. The following tip will help
you and your company combat the amount of spam
you receive

7. Tips for End-users on Handling Spam Emails
Dos
• Check the privacy policy of websites or companies
before you provide any personal information when
filling out web registration forms, online surveys, etc.
• Look for options in websites or emails that allow you
to unsubscribe from receiving further emails, offers or
other marketing information.
• Be careful when subscribing to free email account
services, especially when filling in the account profile.
Check the terms and conditions of the email service.

8. • Use the anti-spam solutions offered by your ISP, or
install email filters to reduce the amount of spam
email you receive.
• Whenever feasible, use separate email addresses for
different purposes. For example, use one email
address for public newsgroups or chat rooms, and
another for personal email messages.
• Avoid using an email address that contains simple
dictionary words, or common names. Spammers can
use brute-force techniques to guess valid email
address at a specific domain using words from
dictionaries, or combinations of common words.

9. • Install and enable anti-virus software, and keep it up
to date using the latest virus signatures. Enable real-
time detection to scan for computer viruses,
malicious code for active processes, executables and
document files that are being processed.
• Install and enable personal firewall software.
• Apply the latest security patches/hot-fixes from
product vendors to your operating system and/or the
applications installed in your computer.
• Be cautious when opening emails and email
attachments, especially when receiving emails from
strangers.

10. • Check the “sent” folder or outgoing mailbox of your
email programme (or webmail account) to see if there
are any outgoing messages that were not sent by you.
If there are such messages, your computer may have
been hacked and used by spammers to send emails
from your account. You should disconnect from the
Internet immediately and scan your computer with
anti-virus or anti-spyware software (make sure the
software’s signatures are up-to-date).
•

11. Don’ts
• Do not disclose your personal information too readily,
including your email addresses.
• Do not publish your email address on public
websites, contact directories, membership directories,
or chat rooms.
• Do not be caught out by the spammers’ favourite
tricks, such as the use of subject headings like
“Remember me?” that try to trick you into thinking
you should know the sender.

12. Tips for Companies/Organisations on Handling
Spam Emails
• Companies can implement a variety of methods to
reduce the amount of incoming spam, such as
protecting company email addresses, using filtering
software and adopting well-defined security
measures for employee workstations and email
servers.

13. • Establish and enforce clear information security
policies, and educate staff not to respond to spam
emails. By responding to spam emails, employees are
actually confirming their company email address as a
valid address to spammers.
• Restrict the use of office email addresses for personal
messages or participation in newsgroup or chat
rooms by employees.

14. • Use a web-based contact form on the company
website. Ensure that site visitors use the form to
contact the company, instead of via a company email
address that may be vulnerable to spam harvesting.
• If you need to publish a business email address on
your site, consider writing it in a way that makes
harvesting by spammers more difficult. For example,
write the email address as “info[at]xyz.com.hk”
instead of “info@xyz.com.hk”, and consider adding a
statement stating that the company does not wish to
receive unsolicited emails, such as “No spam, please”.

15. • Use anti-malware software and solutions at your
email gateway and at individual employee
workstations to filter spam and virus infected emails.
• Install email filter software at the server level if your
company has its own email server. Filtering software
can screen incoming messages before they are
delivered to staff.

16. • If your company uses a web-based email service from
an ISP, they may provide you with a number anti-
spam settings. To reduce the risk of mistakenly
blocking non-spam messages, also consider adding a
holding folder to the filtering system, so that
messages can be reviewed before deletion.
• Adopt good security measures such as server
hardening to protect your email server and web
server from being hacked and used by third parties to
send spam emails.

17. What can you do if you receive a spam email?
• Ignore and delete spam: this is the simplest and most
effective way to handle junk emails. Never reply to a
spam message.
• Report the case to your Internet Service Provider
(ISP) attaching the header of the spam email. Most
ISPs have service terms that prohibit subscribers
from using ISP services for spamming activities.
Depending on the policy of your ISP, a spammer may
be warned, have their service suspended or even
terminated;

18. • Ignore and delete spam: this is the simplest and most
effective way to handle junk emails. Never reply to a
spam message.
• Report the case to your Internet Service Provider
(ISP) attaching the header of the spam email. Most
ISPs have service terms that prohibit subscribers
from using ISP services for spamming activities.
Depending on the policy of your ISP, a spammer may
be warned, have their service suspended or even
terminated;

19. Beware of Email Scam
• In cases of email scam, the fraudsters hacked into the
victim’s email account, checked the victim’s business
correspondence with business partners. They sent an
email to the victim using the same or similar email
account of his business partner and claimed that the
payment bank account had been changed who further
requested the victim to deposit the payment for goods
into the fraudster’s designated bank account.

20. If you receive any suspicious emails, you should
confirm the identity of the purported business
partners or the authenticity of the requests by means
of telephone before remittance so as to prevent from
being deceived.

21. For the best advice on Effective Online Marketing for
your Business,
Contact Redback Web Solutions Today
Telephone:
1300 768 100
Email:
info@redbackwebs.com.au
Or visit our Website
http://www.redbackwebs.com.au/