First, do not put your email address on your website. Robots will scan your site and you'll be on a dozen spam lists by the end of the day. You should use a contact us form instead.

Never click 'Unsubscribe.' You never signed up for the spam in the first place, but by clicking that link you have just announced to the spammers that your email address is an active one.

If you or your web designer have access to 'Spamassassin,' which is installed as a standard on our websites, blocking spam is simple.

The most important thing about spam is that there is no point blocking it by individual email addresses. You will be there all day, every day. Instead, look at two elements of the email: the email address's domain and the subject line. You can block whole domains and phrases.

Most spam uses the same subjects, for example 'online pharmaceuticals,' but coming from different addresses. All you need to do is block those two words by the subject line to stop all of that spam, regardless of which email address it is coming from.

When blocking by the subject line, you should block at least two words. The only time you should use just one word is if you are 100% certain that nobody you know would ever use that word.

If you block
things logically, you
can hit many spam birds
with one stone. This not only helps
reduce spam irritation, but can
also protect you online.

Look at the email address' domain, or the part following the @ symbol. A lot of spam comes from the newer domain extensions, such as something@rocks, or something@racing.

You will never receive legitimate emails from anything something@racing, so if you block every email coming from @racing, you will stop all emails immediately.

Similarly, if you get repeated spam from a domain you have never heard of and would never deal with, block everything at that domain, e.g. *@spammers.com

Again, only block domains that you know nobody legitimate would use. You should never block everything from hotmail.com, or yahoo.com for example, because those could easily be used by real prospective customers.

The final method is by blocking by the sender's name rather than the email address.

For example, you may see that emails come from "Home Tips" and then an email address. Blocking anything from "Home Tips" will prevent all emails even if the email address changes.

Using these methods you can seriously reduce the amount of spam you get every day. If you block things logically, you can hit many spam birds with one stone. This not only helps reduce spam irritation, but can also protect you online.

If you have concerns with your web presence reaching your widest customer base, now is the time to look into our WebUpdate system sites. Not Open Source, they take advantage of advanced SEO, social, and responsive features to give your business the best competitive edge online.

Terry Young is the founder and CEO of Internet Marketing and Design. Since 1997,
his computer programming and graphic design knowledge have kept his company
at the forefront of the latest technology in web development.