Internet Content Filtering

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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The unsolicited junk or bulk email that you receive is known as Spam. Spam is a very serious problem the people have to deal with daily. Sometimes the junk emails exceed the regular email messages that we receive in our email account. Spam filter can be a solution for you to get freedom from Spam mails. There are different types of software to keep out the Spam emails from your inbox. Spam filters can monitor the emails that come in your inbox and prevent any Spam mail from entering in to your inbox.

The Spam email that you receive is due to the inappropriate usage of mailing list. The mailing list consists of email ids of different people and all of them can be flooded with bulk or junk emails. Many companies send out the Spam email massages to a large number of people who do not ask for such massages. Spamming is considered to be very bad netiquette as it amounts in violating a person’s privacy. Netiquette demand that no email id can be used without the user’s permission.

Many Spam filters are designed to help people who are constantly bombarded with junk or bulk mails. Spam filters make use of filtering technology to filter the contents of the incoming emails. Spam filters can effectively help a person by sorting out these types of incoming emails.

Different types of Spam filters can be helpful for controlling spam. Content based Spam filter is one type that can be used by you. The filter scans the content of the email, and searches for tell tale signs for Spam in the message. Content based Spam filters have however not been very effective in controlling the bulk or the junk messages. The main reason for this being that the spammers had devised ways and means by which they can communicate their message despite the presence of such filters.

Spam filters that are prepared these days are designed to give advanced protection against unsolicited emails and spammers. Bayesian filter technology is another effective way of controlling these mails. Bayesian technology is not like other filtering methods that search for Spam identifying words in the header and the subject line. The Bayesian filter uses the entire perspective of an email when it looks for characters or words for identifying a Spam. Another feature of Bayesian Spam filter is that the more it analyzes the incoming mails, the more it learns to identify Spam mails.

Spam mails can sometimes bombard you in such a manner that you may end up receiving more Spam than the regular emails. Most email service providers have Spam filter software enabled in their sites. All you need to do is select the options of setting the Spam filter for your emails according to your liking. You can mark the sites from which you want to receive or not receive mails in your inbox. Setting the options for blocking the bulk or the junk mails is entirely your prerogative.

About the author:

Author - MattGarrett http://www.free-spam-blockers.com

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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A common problem with filters is the fact that they are
a one-size-fits all solution to SPAM. The rules are concrete
and only change based on input from updates from the Anti-spam
service.

SPAM changes too quickly to make that method effective.
Additionally, what is SPAM to you may not be to someone else.
That is where Bayesian filters come in.

They are very effective at eliminating SPAM and have
very low false-positive rates for their users.

Bayesian filters are based on Bayesian logic, a branch
of logic named for Thomas Bayes, an eighteenth century
Mathematician.

This type of logic applies to decision making by
determining the probability of a certain event based on the
history of past events.

Using this as a model seemed a logical step for SPAM
filtering. If you can predict what SPAM will look like now
based on what is has looked like in the past, you are halfway to
the solution.

To finish solving the problem, Bayesian filters were
developed to be dynamic and continue to be effective as the SPAM
changes.

Bayesian filters are content based. They look for
characteristics in each email that you receive and calculate the
probability of it actually being SPAM.

These characteristics are generally words in the content
and the header file information that each email contains. They
can also include common SPAM HTML code, word pairs, phrases, and
the location of a phrase in the body of the email.

Typical words in SPAM would be “Free” and “Win”, while
“humility” would probably not appear. The filter begins with a
50% neutral score for the email, and then adds points for SPAM
characteristics.

Likewise, deductions are made for non-SPAM characteristics
present. The total score is calculated and then action is taken
based on its likelihood of being SPAM.

The filter does not assume that all arriving email is
bad, rather that all email is neutral and should be considered
equally.

Bayesian filters are better than traditional content
scoring filters in that they are trained by you to recognize
your email.

A doctor, for example, might have many emails
legitimately using the word “Viagra”. A traditional content
scoring filter would probably shoot that email to the SPAM
folder, or delete it.

This would result in a high false-positive rate for the
doctor, even if you don’t want Viagra emails. The filter will
build a list based on the doctors email use and corrections to
incorrectly marked email.

The initial training period may be a little time consuming,
but once complete offers a tailored solution to SPAM
control for each user.

In addition to protecting the good email, the filter makes
it difficult for Spammers to trick as every filter will have
individual requirements.

That being said, Spammers do have a few weapons in their
arsenal to attempt to circumvent Bayesian filters. The easiest
would be to create SPAM that looks like an everyday letter.

This would remove their ability to use typical marketing
techniques and so is not as likely with normal commercial email.
For the purveyors of fraud, however, this would be easier.

Spammers could also so weight a message with a common
good word, or distort the bad ones, that it becomes scored as
neutral or lower and get through.

Once correctly marked as SPAM by you, though, the filter
will adjust and not be fooled again. This automation and
ability of the software to grow as you and SPAM change over time
is key to the significance of these types of filters.

Widespread use of good Bayesian filters will not only
eliminate SPAM on your end, but would reduce the practice of
Spamming altogether. If they cannot get the mail through, they
are just wasting their time.

About the Author

Debbie Hamstead is the webmaster of http://www.StompingOutSPAM.com
Offering a comprehensive Quick Start Guide to keeping SPAM out
of your inbox. She also manages http://www.nichesites4profit.com

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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A
whole bunch of ezines you send to your subscribers are being
trashed. Filtering software has been spreading like wildfire
from ISP to ISP. The decisions these programs make are beyond
your control. The question is, “Are you out of business?”
1049 words; 6.2K
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Thanks for listening!

Bob
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SPAM FILTERS ARE CRIPPLING EZINES
By Bob McElwain

The growing use of software to filter incoming email to
an ISP has added an unanswerable question: How many subscribers
receive your ezine? For several years now, I’ve ignored
subscriber list totals. The data is fuzzy when you look
at numbers held, numbers not delivered, and so forth. I track
only the number of successful deliveries. However, this number
is now much less meaningful.

Many (most?) ISPs have installed email filters to block spam
and that other stuff I can’t mention for fear of being blocked.
If those filters bounced back to the mailing service, the
addresses could be eliminated. Most are only trashed into the
big black hole of cyberspace. So there’s no telling how many
don’t get through.

Some are bounced back to me personally. Unfortunately, no
email address is provided, so I can’t remove it from my list.
I get a particular hoot out of this, when they’ve blocked my
newsletter, calling it spam. I wonder what they’re calling
the stuff they send to me.

Moral Irresponsibility In Action

Such software is a great example of irresponsibility in
action. And the lack of ethics and morality of which we see
far too much. The ‘gods’ (programmers?) have decreed we’re
at the mercy of computer algorithms which are primitive at best.

Analyzing the meaning of a statement in English with a
computer is still in its infancy, even though many powerful
minds have been working at it for many years. Current
software assumes related problems have been resolved, which
is absurd.

Here’s What Has Happened To Me

Beginning in November in 2001, I began to notice a fall off
in responses to “STAT News.” Both to ads, and comments emailed
to me. I didn’t pay much attention at first, for things like
this fluctuate.

But I did check seriously in December. Definitely down in
both areas. During January and February, I was pretty much out
of things due to some heavy surgery. I didn’t really get back
up to speed until March. By then, the downtrend in the response
rate over November last year was very noticeable. Certainly in
excess of 15% by any measure.

Blocking Software To The Rescue?

By March, it was also clear spam blocking software was the
current rage. I believe this accounts for the drop in response
I have seen. Here’s why.

Email response to the newsletter dropped by the same
percentage as ad response. I track ad response accurately with
software. So the only place for error in making this statement
is in misjudging email response. My answer to that was to check
trash and count. The percentages were almost identical,
although there’s not enough data to be certain.

If only ad response had dropped off, I’d have decided I
needed new ads. But when both dropped by the same percentage,
I had to charge it off to the spam filters.

An Up Close And Personal Experience

My ISP installed a filtering package along about April of
this year. I was “automatically” enrolled. This meant I got
to visit the site and look at the blocked mail. Much more
time consuming than doing so in my mailing program. Curious,
however, I let it run for a time.

Surprise! Over a 9 day period, I found almost 30 messages
from acquaintances, friends, peers, visitors, and subscribers
blocked. Beyond notifying them that it happened, I was
completely unable to say why. My hunch was, and remains,
inadequate computing routines. Or inadequate programmers
creating them.

When I’d had enough, I turned the filters off. Guess I
should be thankful I had that option. Shoot, some folks that
mean a lot to me, only write a couple times a year. And I sure
don’t want to miss these messages.

Another List

I maintain a mailing list of people to whom I send my
articles each week. In one mailing, about half a dozen were
sent back to me from AOL. Reason: Invalid DNS pointers.
Gee. I wonder how visitors are reaching my site.

As mentioned, most of the mail filtered out is simply
trashed. So there’s no way to get a handle on this problem.
I’d willingly delete email addresses, if they were returned to
me. But if these packages wanted to play fair, they’d bounce
to my mail list server. But being fair is not their objective.

Alternatives

Many have decided to send only a brief message that points
to a URL for an HTML version of the ezine. This won’t work for
all subscribers. Many don’t want to move from handling email
to jump onto the Web. Page views will demonstrate wether or
not this is so for you.

Another plan is to refer to an autoresponder for a copy of
the current issue. I don’t see how this helps, for the content
mailed will have to get through the same filter your newsletter
would have faced directly.

Further, both ideas fail when the filtering catches
something in the headers it doesn’t like. As with AOL claiming
my DNS pointers were flawed. Or a blacklisted IP address. How
to beat such happenings is totally beyond me.

A Possible Maybe

I know many don’t like attachments, but here’s a thought.
Send a message which has no content. Just identify the
newsletter in the subject field by name. (It has been suggested
we use our full name in the From field, but I’ve been doing this
routinely.)

Let the message contain only the URL to your HTML version.
And include a .TXT version as an attachment. A click will load
it to an editor on most systems. Again, though, if the
“obscene” content is in the header, the message won’t go
through.

My Plan

I see no better alternative than to continue to grow my list
and mail to it. I’ll simply have to factor in a number for
those arbitrarily trashed. If those into this kind of thing
come up with a number, my hunch is that it will be about 25%.

When I adjust my email and ad response by 25%, the numbers
agree with those in pervious years. Not fact, of course. But
suggestive.

Whatever this number proves to be, I’ll live with it.
And seek to be content with the percentage delivered.

About the Author

Bob McElwain, author of “Your Path To Success” and
“Secrets To A Really Successful Website.” For
info, see

Learn How to Protect Your Family from the Worst of the Web!

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If you have an Internet business, then you have a need for quality, fresh content. It has been said that the more content means a greater chance of attracting web visitors.

So basically, more content means more visitors which means more m*ney!

But what if you really hate writing or can’t think of ways to get more content?

If that is the case, then here are six great places where you can easily add quality content to your website.

Google Alerts

Google has a service that sends news, press releases, and website information to your email account. Easy to set up, you enter a search phrase and Google Alerts will send you updates about that specific topic. You easily take this information and create a 100-150 word summary that can be entered into a blog or news section.

To get started, you can check-out Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts

Public Domain

There are tons of books, magazines and websites full of great content that can be easily copied to your website. Called Public Domain Works, this is content that is written by someone else which has no copyright protection. You have the legal-right to take it and use it for your own purpose. By using public domain works, you can easily create sites with thousands of pages.

Some of the better places to find Public Domain works are http://www.firstgov.gov/ or http://www.gutenberg.org.

Articles

By using other people’s articles, you can easily add thousands of pages to your website. If you go to an article directory, you can find a large variety of web articles that are related to your topic. In addition, most of these articles are quite informative and provide quality content to your web visitor.

Two of the better places to find quality web articles are http://www.goarticles.com and http://www.ezinearticles.com

Outsource Your Content

If you have a little c*sh to spend, you can easily hire someone else to write tons of web content. What I usually do is find about 30-50 profitable keywords in my niche and hire someone to write an optimized article of 400-600 words. Usually you can find authors for around $8-$10 per article. So for a small-investment, you can get great content that is unique and optimized for search engines.

Here are few places where you can find quality (and affordable) people to write content articles: http://www.elance.com and http://www.rentacoder.com

Private Label Resale Rights

One of the “hidden” places to get quality content is through websites that offer private label resale rights. With private label rights you get full access to ebooks and articles that are written by other people. You have full permission to change or present the content in any way that you see fit. So if you find an ebook with 101 tips on a topic, you can easily turn this material into a series of web pages. You can also take this one step further and create an autoresponder sequence that is tied into your major affiliate-program.

One of the best places I use to get private label rights is http://www.nicheology.com

RSS Feeds

A great way to get fresh content is to have a RSS Feed installed on your website. Basically a RSS Feed is a tool that pulls news items from a website or blog. A great trick is to place the RSS Feed on all your web pages, so search engines see that your content is being consistently updated.

What I usually do is use a feed that pulls entries from my own blog. That way, I can control the content and amount of times that it is being updated.

One of the better places to find a good RSS Feed for your website is http://www.pheeds.com.

Although I have given you six great places to get content, there is one thing you should know about using it. Many search engines penalize websites for having duplicate content. So if you know that this information is listed on other sites, you need to change or add to the content. What I usually do is add to or alter about 25% of the content. This will help you avoid the duplicate content filter that is used by major search engines.

By utilizing all six of these content sources, you can easily build up a site filled with thousands of pages of fresh quality content that will attract tons of web-traffic. Once this is done, you will see your income soar through the roof.

About the Author

Scott J. Patterson is not that smart, yet he earns over $12,000 a month from his online businesses. To find out how YOU can build a profitable Internet business, download his fr*e ebook, The Secret-Guide to Home Businesses: http://www.duncemoney.com/content.html