Just Say No to Catchall Email!
For every piece of legitimate email you receive, how many pieces of spam do you filter?
Sadly, the spam/legitimate ratio is frequently +1. And growing.
Sigh.
That’s why I was surprised to see that a few small business folks I hold in high regard still have catchall email enabled at their servers.
Catchall email is a terrible idea. When spammers find out you have a catchall email account (and it usually doesn’t take very long), you can expect an exponential increase in spam. And of course, catchall email account settings can dramatically decrease your efficiency and productivity.
Nonetheless, my colleagues defended their catchall email practice, erroneously believing it a) helps reduce spam and b) increases efficiency! Here are two examples of the flawed thinking behind catchall accounts:
- “Well, when I sign up for various online accounts, I have to give them an email address. So if I sign up for a Google account, say, I tell ‘em I’m google @ mydomain.com . Or facebook @ mydomain.com. Or whatever. I have zillions of email names. That way, I know if I start getting spam at one of the names, then that’s the company that sold my domain name. I’ll know that they are a bad business, and I’ll block their emails, and report them as spammers.”
- “And when I create all kinds of email names, I’m more efficient. I set up my inbox to automatically file every piece of email that comes in by email name into different inbox folders.”
Oi. What misconceptions! Let’s clear ‘em up….
- “From Line” spam is a scourge. When spammers find a “catchall” server, they couldn’t be more delighted. They’ll put any old name at the front part of the email — with a @yourdomain.com ending — so that your catchall server receives all the bounces that jack up server load and bandwidth. If it goes up too high, your host may just shut you down! Further, using a catchall means that you’ll also get all the spam complaints! You can watch your online reputation erode as your server gets blacklisted. Over time, many of your legitimate emails won’t make it through to your clients. And of course, spammers LOVE to use brand names like “Google” and “Facebook” in the “from line” email account — it makes them appear legit! So if you think using brand names as the first part of your email address name will “prove” that companies are selling your email addresses — guess again!
- More email addresses = much less efficient. There are much, much better ways to organize your email inbox than by “From line”. How about setting up client folders — so that when your clients email you (use their server addresses as the filter), their emails go into that folder? Or set up a Bacn folder, so that Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and other social media updates and requests can be dealt with at a more convenient time? And of course, a catchall account pretty much insures that you’re creating a negative online reputation and creating an atmosphere where spam can multiply exponentially — so there’s nothing “efficient” or “productive” about this practice.
If you’re serious about protecting your online reputation and increasing productivity, re-think your catchall email policy.
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[…] my client did not have a catchall account — so we shut down the one, lone email account in question for a day, and asked clients to use […]