Did YOU Pull That Trigger?

Did YOU Pull That Trigger?
Copyright 2003 Darlene Styers

Are you triggering the sp*am filter? Most likely. If so,
your Ezine or the Ezine publishing your ad may not be
reaching the suscribers. What will you do about it?

Just a short time ago the greatest threat to onine marketing
was SP*AM. In the past years the internet has changed. One
of the most noticeable changes is the fact that now the
sp*ammers are not as great a threat as the filters that are
being used to prevent mail sent by sp*ammers from reaching
its destination.

The ISP provider can be using filters to block incoming
sp*am. The computer user (you and I) can set up filters.
The result is that no matter how innocent the message may
be, unless we are careful not to use "triggers", our
communications just go nowhere.

There are many words and/or phrases which trigger the
filter. For instance, if your communication includes the
words "sub*scribe", "cl*ick here" or "un*subscribe" filters
will delete the message. And how often do you use these
words? But these three examples are just the beginning.

Do not use whole words or sentences in caps. These get a
very high score in Sp*amAssassin and are probably the most
common mistakes made. Avoid the use of the word fr*ee.
Use the word Newsletter as a part of the subject.
Newsletters are more apt to escape the filters.

Classified ads almost always contain words or phrases that
will trigger the filters. Some word combinations to avoid
are: wh*o are, loo*king for, he*lp you, you w*ant, fr*ee
ads, mo*re than, em*ail address, give y*ou, whe*n you, for
y*our, m*oney making, wi*th this, act n*ow, w*ork at h*ome,
wh*at you, s*ave time and mon*ey, you*r sales, and for
fr*ee. Newsletter publishers who publish classifieds are
required to edit all classifieds and alter trigger words.

It becomes more and more difficult for Publishers to use
classified ads due to the amount of time required to
filter-proof all of the ads.

Submitting articles that are not sp*am-proofed will probably
get you nowhere. When a publisher attempts to use your
article, if it is found to contain too many triggers the
publisher may just use another article that is spam-proof.

Some auto-responders used for publishing ezines and
newsletters use SpamAssassin to tell the publisher which
triggers need to be modified before publishing.
SpamAssassin also operates a fr*ee service that you can use
before submitting your articles and ads. Copy and paste
your ad, article or newsletter in message addressed to
mailto:spamcheck@sitesell.net and use the word TEST (case
sensitive) as subject. (Notice I did not say "sub*ject
line" as that is a trigger). Shortly, you will receive
their report telling you the score along with an analysis
of the item you submitted. It seems that a guideline you
can use is: A score below 5 is acceptable; A score of
12-16 means that most filters will reject your
communication.

Notice the number of times * is used in this article, and
you will see how sensitive these filters can be.
Sp*amAssassin, after the use of all of the *, gives this
article a score of 2.3.
_________________________________________________________
Darlene Styers is Owner and Publisher of iNetProfitz Newsletter. Subscribe: http://inetprofitz.2ya.com
Contact: iNetProfitz@hcis.net
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