Online PR sites

[daveashton]

Hi we have been using online PR sites for a while now and use an alias so that we can track the results.

Over the last month we have seen an amazing up turn in SPAM email' all addressed to the alias. Is anyone else having the same problem?

[Ozzy]

It may be related but a large number of spammers use custom web crawlers that crawl the internet and milk email addresses from websites.

[Webstuff]

As Ozzy says, some websites are regularly "harvested" for email addresses. Try using a less important email address (if possible), such as one from a free host. I generally use a hotmail address when dealing with other peoples websites / link directories, etc.

[kyber]

Post made in error. Content removed.

[daveashton]

Ok great ideas but......

When we do a press release we get between 2-8 calls asking for the alias from journalists. What we don’t want them to do is to be but off by an msm/ yahoo email address.

Do you think having this type of email address would put them off? or is this common practice?

[Webstuff]

No, there you might have a slight problem. It may seem unprofessional in their journalistic eyes. Set up the temporary email addresses on your own domain. Make sure total forwarding (or whatever its called) is turned off for your POP3 server (in other words, any emails to an incorrect / fake address are simply ignored, not placed in a mailbox). Make sure temporary addresses have a serious sounding name, ie; sales@your-domain.com, onlinesales@your-domain.com, etc.

[Greg]

Using a temporary email address would be a turn-off to journalists.

I'd have to double check this, but am pretty sure the our site has anti-spam 'software' so email addresses aren't picked up on trawls. Am yet to hear of any client being spammed. If you're using one of the free upload sites it's likely you will get spam and unlikely many journalists will read your press release - sites that allow you to upload releases un-vetted are not considered reliable sources by the press.

The best response rates come from sending releases directly, and individually, to targeted journalists - to establish relationships with them.

[Webstuff]

Also, consider just installing some spam-prevention software on your own mail server...

[c4l]

I had a problem with Spammers!

My hit counters were picking up like 20 hits a day from countries like Saudi Arabia and Bosnia etc - surely these people don't want to import a SEAT Leon from me???? (More worrying have had 10 hits this week from a US Military server!).

Anyway, what i did was set up an online enquiry form. Seems to be working well as my address wasn't shown. Have added it back now but the SPAM seems relatively low level at the mo.

Maybe an online enquiry form may help???

[Webstuff]

The military server may well have just been soldiers on their lunchbreak looking at cars :P I wouldn't worry too much about the saudi arabian/bosnian connections, unless your websites security is flawed in any way. I'm sure they drive cars over there too! I use online enquiry forms as opposed to giving out my email, and have done so with every previous website that I've developed.