There are many ways to spam search engines and trick search engine spider to increase traffic to websites. Some of these popular methods are better known as ‘search engine spamming. Let’s know more about these methods in order to gain clarity:

Keyword Stuffing:
It is commonly known as the repeated use of word or phrase in order to make a page look more relevant. There is a specific way of including keywords in a webpage. Determine your exact keywords and use them in different ways to include in the page.

Invisible Text:
In this method, spammers usually insert text that is a combination of repetitive use of keywords on a webpage. The main aspect of this kind of process is that it is discolored and make to look similar as the background color so as to making invisible for common users.

Tiny Text:
Many times, spammers use small font size to place their content. By doing so again and again, search engines may penalize the website.

Page Spoofing / Meta Refresh / Redirection:
This is a process that automatically redirects users to a newly developed webpage. Usually, spammers create a separate page for particular keywords. So, when users click on the link, it will lead users to a different page with very content with no relation with the mentioned keywords. Therefore, most search engines simply decline such pages.

Meta Tag Stuffing:
Usually, adding keywords to a webpage without putting in excess keywords is an accepted form of search engine popularizing. However, many people place high traffic keywords which are directly not related with a webpage in any way.

Common spam indexing techniques are content spam and link spam. Content spam may include: keyword stuffing, hidden or invisible, meta tag stuffing, gateway or doorway pages, scraper sites, article spinning. Link spam includes: hidden links, link building using automated software, page hijacking, cookie stuffing, Sybil attacks and link farms.

Other spam indexing techniques are cloaking, url redirection.

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About the Author:
Road2SEO is a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization Book for the SEO professionals. Road2SEO, one of the effective SEO Book helps you learn search engine optimization to create a powerful pipeline that drives a steady flow of traffic to your site. To learn SEO online use the powerful Internet Marketing tool Road2SEO.
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Scammers love to disguise their true identity with the names of high profile figures like State Presidents, Ministers, Ambassadors, Directors, etc. Make sure that that government officials won’t email to your mail id and they won’t announce any rewards or prices in mail. Once if you receive such emails try to avoid it and don’t reply.
Scam 419 consists of Subject lines about Payments, Lotteries, Bank Drafts, Compensation, Funds and other financial related terms
The subject line often contains an instruction to contact a specific individual, department or organization. For example, Contact my secretary, Contact the fiduciary agent, Contact the bank official, Contact the ATM Department of and Contact FedEx like that.
Use the anti scam resources, a resource that contains full information about scam emails and scammers. Many Nigerian spam sites have anti scam resources where you can check the mail and can identify the internet fraud easily.
Fake job ads are circulated by fraudsters mostly through internet that seek to attract job seekers to give up personal data and perform a fake job. Remember that a genuine employer will never ask for money for visa processing or travel costs. To check whether it is genuine or fake check the website URL using anti scam resources.
Never give your personal information or certificate copies/identity proof and also never give your bank account or credit card numbers.
Communicate via email instead of instant messengers. In case of email communication you will have proof which you may show to police later on, if required. But must give a phone call to verify phone number.
Avoid the investment internet fraud by contacting the business bureau to determine the legality of the company

To tackle the internet fraud is very easy since there are many resources, websites and books for spam emails. Scammers use the resource of internet and try to cheat us. So we should make the scammers fool by using the same internet resources like spam emails books, anti scam resources and more in an effective way.

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About the Author:
Peter is a SEO copywriter for Nigerian Spam. He has written various articles like, Way to transport a used car out of state. For more information visit our site our site http://www.nigerianspam.com/anti-scam-articles.htm . Contact him through mail at nigerianspamadmin@gmail.com
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FIGHT SPAM WITH FIRE

Automation gives spammers a great advantage since they can gather email addresses in big numbers. If email addresses had to be collected manually it wouldn’t be worth a spammer’s effort.

You too can play this game.

Programs can fight spam for the simple reason that these same programs create spam. There are several programs available to fight spam. Before you use this type of software you might want to know just how spammers do what they do and what you can do to fight them.

Spambots are one tool that spammers use. A spambot is a program which browses through websites searching for legitimate email addresses. These email addresses are then harvested and stored in big databases. These lists are then used by the spammer in marketing schemes or they are sold to someone else. There can be so many email addresses that they take up several CDs.

As of yet there are no ideal tools for fooling spambots. There are, however, a few techniques that are quite effective.

MISDIRECT

Your email address won’t be harvested if you don’t expose it. This concept is hard to avoid since there are so many forums, blogs, and other public websites that rely on you providing your email address before you can post.

Use an email address for these public websites that you don’t use for your personal email. Once you set up and confirm an email address you won’t have to worry about what is sent there if you don’t use it. Use a different email address for your personal mail and make sure that you only give it out to those people you trust.

Yahoo, Hotmail, and other big email providers are often used for this reason. Some websites have figured this out and won’t let you use email addresses that end in yahoo.com, for instance. Luckily there are many other free providers of email service on the Internet so you can use a different one each time.

CAMOUFLAGE

Although a Spambot can be quite smart it still isn’t human. This means that a Spambot won’t be able to make inferences or distinctions without being specifically programmed for this. Many times a spambot will pass you by if you disguise your email address. Spambots are often programmed to search for character strings such as email_address@someemaildomain.com. A program can only do what it has been told to do. Even a small change in your email address, such as email_address_at_NOSPAMsomeemaildomain.com, will be enough to throw a spambot off.

If the disguised email address that you’ve created is picked up by a spambot the address will still need to “scrubbed” before it can be used. A program for scrubbing is hard to write since there are so many variations that are possible such as no*spam and NO-SPAM. Although the variations are easy for humans to decode a program will have a much harder time and only do what you tell it to do.

There are some drawbacks to this method. You’ll need to take out the extra letters in your email address and put in the @ sign. This is something that you may not do because you don’t understand the process or because you hit “reply to” before remembering what you need to do. There are also many systems for email confirmation that are automated by software and they can fail to send the address that you want.

There is one variation on the above technique that both a common user and designers of websites can use. You can configure the account for your email so that the person you’re sending mail to will view your address as whatever you want them to see regardless of what the real address is. This is, after all, how spammers hide themselves.

FILTERS

It can be undesirable for you to change your email address after you’ve created it and sent it out to those people you trust. This means that you sometimes need to make efforts that are high cost to disguise your email address which is something you want the spammer to feel instead of you.

This is where junk mail and spam filters come in.

A filter will look at every email before it is delivered. At this time the filter will use complicated algorithms to decide which mail is junk and which isn’t. A filter can be configured so that mail from a sender address that is in your address book will pass through the filter right to your Inbox. Other mail will be sent to what is called a “Junk” folder.

These algorithms aren’t perfect and sometimes are scrutinized by email services so that they are actually collecting more junk mail than legitimate ones. When you review what is in the junk folder, and indicate what is indeed junk and what isn’t, you help the algorithm to guess more accurately next time.

ADDING TO THE PRICE

Even the most determined spammer will tire of creating variations in programming in order to pass by all the things that try to stop them. Many times the reward won’t be worth the effort. You want to make the price of their efforts higher than their reward. This keeps your own cost down and brings you the most reward.

Although spammers haven’t yet given up the progress to stop them has been good.

Paul Wilcox writes about email scams [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com/phishing.php] and other related topics for the Internet Security Squad website. Sign up for my free newsletter and receive my special report “How To Lock Your Computer Down – Internet Security in 2006″ at [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com/freereport]

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Spam has been one of the common problems of internet users. When you go online and check your mail, the chances of having an email which came from unfamiliar email address is very high. So what you will usually do is to delete the email. However, what if it is not just one spam email but there are a lot of them. Deleting these mails can be very tedious and this is where anti spam services come in.

Anti spam services are tools that will help you reduce or even eliminate any unwanted email from your mailbox. Most internet service provider will offer anti spam services which allow you to filter the email you receive. One of its features is allowing you to have an approved list of email or domain addresses that you would like to receive email from. Thus, those you don’t know will not be able to send an email to you. Then, you can even block certain email or domain addresses. This is helpful if you have already recognized the addresses of spammers.

Another option that you can have on an anti spam service is filtering email according to its subject and content. This means that you can block email that contains specific word or phrases. Another feature is the ability to filter email based on the language used by the sender. This is beneficial for those that only expect email from a specific language.

Some anti spam services will give you preset filters (e.g. low, medium and high). The system will automatically detect which email is considered spam. This is great for beginners because of its simplicity. You do not need to select a lot of option. However, the risk with this one is that some legitimate email may be branded as spam. So you may be expecting an email from a friend but your anti spam software may have deleted it because of the settings you have for your filters. For businessman, this process is not recommended.

Most anti spam services usually have the basic features that you need to stop unwanted mails. However, if you would like to have smarter software, you may need to purchase or buy an anti spam software. You may make a research on the internet as to which software will best suit your internet needs. Make a comparison of anti softwares so you can easily decide which one is appropriate for you.

Anti spam services will add more protection to your online life. It helps in reducing the risk of having a full mailbox at all times and protects you from computer viruses. Great features and benefits can be fully enjoyed if you continue to update yourself about this spam. It will then allow you to take precautionary measures to minimize the problems that are brought about by spam.

Dave Poon is an accomplished writer who specializes in the latest in Internet Safety. For more information regarding Anti Spam Services [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/anti_spam_services.php] please drop by at [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/]

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Spyware is many times installed without a user giving permission. There will be times when the software can’t be installed without the use of specialized tools. Trust is lost when some distributors install the software by using tricks of deception.

The first thing that you can do to defend yourself against spyware is to use caution when installing any software. You should always know what it is that you’re downloading. Many shareware and freeware programs have spyware hidden within them. Sometimes you’ll be able to read about the spyware in the user agreement.

Check for any guarantees that the software that you’re downloading is free of spyware. And even then you should be on the defensive. For example, Kazaa (a file sharing software program) has been saying for years that they are free of spyware. Once you download Kazaa you’ll soon realize that this is a false claim.

So just how do you know if your computer system has any spyware? One way you can tell is if you get pop-up messages even when you aren’t on the Internet. Another indication of spyware is when your homepage changes without your knowledge. You might find that toolbars appear in your web browser that you haven’t requested. Or you may find that your computer is moving slowly or that it reboots suddenly on its own. The last indication that you have spyware is when a virus appears.

Don’t give up hope if there is spyware on your computer. You can remove spyware with the use of certain utilities that have been developed for just this purpose. These utilities use databases that are updated often and which include the signature files of every known piece of adware and spyware. The utility will scan every file that is on your hard drive and notify you when any spyware or adware is found.

Some of these utilities are free to use but many times the versions that you pay for will have more features including removing adware and spyware on receipt instead of just needing a manual scan. No utility will be able to remove all of the spyware from your computer because it counts on a database which is kept updated according to the judgment of others.

There is some spyware that will be hard to remove. You may need to make some changes to your computer settings as well as install certain files. Many times the only way to remove some spyware is to find all the places where it is located and manually delete all of these files.

You should only delete files if you are skilled with computers. If you end up deleting the wrong file you could do damage to your computer as well as the programs on your computer.

“HijackThis” is one software tool that will help you get rid of nasty spyware. This tool will create a list of certain files that might have been changed by spyware. The list can be very concise and will include the files of legitimate software that is on your computer as well as system files.

You can use HijackThis when you want to look for spyware that is hard to remove and that keeps on returning. The tool uses the knowledge of certain settings on your system so you need to use caution when altering them. You could end up disabling your computer if you choose the wrong setting. You’ll find many HijackThis pros on the Internet who are willing to give you advice about any entries that may be suspicious.

When your computer is free of spyware you’ll want to keep it clean. Many spyware removal utilities will have features that can keep your computer from being open to spyware. The utility will monitor any changes to your computer files and let you know if anything suspicious occurs.

Be cautious of any offers for free spyware removal. You may end up with more than you wanted.

Paul Wilcox writes about how to remove spyware [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com/spyware.php] and other related topics for the Internet Security Squad website. Get more helpful information and advice at [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com]

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Below are some signs that would indicate your need for an anti spam software:

-Your mailbox is bombarded with unsolicited email and it cannot be controlled by the built in filtering features of your email account.

-Legitimate and important mails are missing because of the filtering services that you are currently using.

-You go to chatrooms (specifically public chats) or you are a newsgroup member. This is dangerous because your email address will be posted to a lot of people and can easily be gathered by spammers.

-You cannot differentiate a scam from legitimate email.

-Your computer has viruses due to downloaded file attachments.

Once you have decided that there is a need for you to buy an anti spam software, try to do your homework of getting information about the available programs that you can download. Here are some tips to help you decide which anti spam software is best for you:

-Choose a freeware. This means that the software will still have a free trial period (which usually last for 30 days) so that you have the time to decide whether or not you will continue to purchase it after you have tested it for about a month.

-Offers more enhanced features. A good anti spam software should not only offer filtering services but also some added protection such as virus scanning for attachments.

-Be practical. Don’t spend too much just for an anti software program. Choose affordable software which offers great features and benefits.

-Compatibility. Verify the requirements of the software. Ensure that the anti spam software will work with your email client. If you have multiple email accounts, then it should work with all your accounts.

-Select a trusted manufacturer. Verify the reputation and credibility of the manufacturer. A great manufacturer will most certainly create great software.

-User-friendly. An anti spam software with complex settings is hard to configure and may take too much of your time just by learning the software. It is better that you can easily setup it up so you can quickly achieve the desired output.

-Available customer support. There are cases that you have exhausted all your effort and still you cannot solve the problem you have encountered with the software. Then, you will need a customer support via email, chat or phone.

Remember that no good anti spam software will promise a spam free mailbox. What it will do is help you minimize or reduce the chances of getting spam mails.

It is important that you know what you need and what to look for. A lot of anti spam softwares are offered in the market so start making a comparison on the available softwares. Then, you can make a smart decision when choosing an anti spam software.

Dave Poon is an accomplished writer who specializes in the latest in Internet Safety. For more information regarding Anti Spam Software [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/] please drop by at [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/]

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Imagine the above statistic of 85% is your inbox. You have been away for the weekend and upon your return, you decide to check your Inbox to see if you’ve got any important messages you need to deal with (and to see if your friends have sent you any funny pictures of course). Your Inbox total reads 100 unread messages. Wow, you sure are popular lately! It’s only been a couple of days.

You open your Inbox and are immediately downcast as you trawl through the mass of spam (unsolicited) emails. Out of 100 messages only 15 will be what we call ‘real’ mail. Of course this is assuming you don’t have any spam filtering service, either with your ISP / Mailhost or on your email client.

The advent of ISP’s and the like using spam filters and automatic virus checkers has certainly made a huge impact on the amount we no longer receive in our inboxes, but these are not infallible. Quite often the people who send spam find ways to circumvent the filters, or legitimate mail ends up in the spam/bulk email folders and you have to wade through it all anyway.

Ways in which to stop spam:

Use email filtering, on your own computer as well as your ISPs.
Only give out your email address to friends, relatives and trusted colleagues. Use web based email for anything else. Be aware though, that a lot of web based email services such as msn and yahoo are used by spammers and as such some websites do not accept registrations from these.
If you send an email to all your friends, don’t put them all in to the ‘to’ field, use Bcc.
Make sure your email software is set to not show images and disable HTML mail, use plain text instead.
Don’t forget to run anti-spyware programmes regularly.
If you join a website or forum, only use those who give you the option to hide your email address.
Don’t click the opt out link in an email, if it is from a reputable site, go to the site and search for their opt out link that way. If it is spam, all it will do it verify your email address as valid.
Report spam to the senders ISP.

There is a wealth of information on the internet on how to deal with unwanted emails. It is worth your while spending a little time to research.

How to deal with the stress of spam:

It is very annoying, time consuming and stressful having to deal with all that spam. It takes time out of your day where you could be doing something useful, or not. So how do you keep yourself from getting too stressed whilst wading through it all?

That is a question I can’t answer, as we all respond to and deal with stress differently. I can however tell you how I have managed to actually find time to laugh at the vast amounts of spam I receive.

After sending any spam that dared to invade my Inbox to the spam folder, I then go into the spam folder to check for legitimate mail. Once that’s done, I take a minute to look at the senders name on all the spam. These are automated random names, designed to look as though they are from real addresses/people, but I find some of them humourous and look through to find the funniest. It only takes a couple of minutes, but laughing at it takes the stress away from having it at all, and then I can get on with the rest of my time online relaxed. Don’t let spam bother you, deal with it, laugh at it and then forget it.

Sue Neve is a graduate of the university of life. She can be regularly found trying to educate others to understand society around them through discussions on many subjects. Articles can be found at http://www.the-rant.co.uk

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There are literally thousands of examples of spam scams that are designed to get your money. One spam scam that unfortunately works on some trusting and unsuspecting victims is that of the Nigerian Bank. The scam involves a Nigerian official’s wife who is trying to access millions of dollars in a Nigerian Bank. If you send a few thousand to help you will be rewarded with a share of the fortune. Sadly people do fall for this, including a Czech man who lost his entire savings.

Beware of any spam asking for your money. There are many investment spam scam that never show any return. Another common scam is the credit card for those with poor credit. They require you to send a processing fee, and in return you never receive your card.

Another common type of spam scam is the multilevel market scheme. This scam involves so-called distributors of a new product. They explain that you could make millions by reselling this product; you just need to buy a wholesale amount. Once you send your money the distributor is nowhere to be found.

Never trust these types of emails. Trusted vendors don’t typically send random spam unless you have signed up to be on their mailing list. Don’t even bother reading the email, if you don’t recognize the sender simply hit delete.

Many people get so angry with spam they decide to reply to the spammer with a hateful response. Never do this. This lets the spammer know you are indeed reading their messages and you are sure to receive twice as much spam as you already are. You should also refrain from using their opt out list since this just helps to verify your email address as well.

Never ever give your personal information out when asked via email. Some scams involve asking for a password and appears to be from a reputable business. No ëreal’ business would ever ask for personal info via email, so don’t respond.

Paul Wilcox writes about spam [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com/spam.php], spyware, viruses and other related topics for the Internet Security Squad website. Get more helpful information about protecting yourself against online threats at [http://www.internetsecuritysquad.com]

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The best thing that you can do to lessen the problem on spam is by ignoring them. You should not respond on those ads, promotions or invitations that are shown on your mails. You should also know how to filter them out on your messages and report them to the providers.

There is actually a resolution passed to the U.S Congress about a bill against spam. Unfortunately, regardless of the win in the congress favoring the CAUCE in year 2000, spam is still very active on the Internet. An option you can do is to be a member of the CAUCE to continue the fight against a more convincing bill against spam.

There are sites on the Internet that provide information on how to fight and prevent spam. You should also do your part on fighting this spam so that your Internet use is convenient. How will you do it? Here are some tips on how you can fight and prevent spam.

1. Make sure that you report that spam provider and find out who to complain to. However, this may seem to be a little complicated because of the lesser chance of pointing out who the spam provider is. To make it easier for you, you may complain to the provider of your Internet access.

2. You can determine the spam provider by finding out the domain name the spammer is using in sending the mails. You can do this if you see that the email has an address where you can reply or a particular web page where you can get a trace of the spam sender.

3. To know where the spam originates, you can ask your mail reader to show all the headers and see what are listed on the “Received” lines. Then you can read the messages from the Received lines from top to the end of message.

4. If you have located an offending site and you want to determine their stream provider, you can use the “traceroute” tool. You can fill in all the information on the traceroute tool so that it can locate the spam stream provider. The traceroute can also be accessed using your local system especially if you are tracing small activity spam operating on your mails.

5. If you have located the spam provider, you can automatically report the spam link provider to spam guard sites. However, you can complain only after repeated attempts to qualify them as spammers. Even those sites that have very good anti spam policies are sometimes unsuccessful in finding the culprits.

To avoid spam, never post your email address on public message boards or to popular newsgroups. Make sure that you disguise your email address on your Web page. According to recent studies, one of the main ways spammers get information is through “scraping” the mails out of Web pages.

Dave Poon is an accomplished writer who specializes in the latest in Internet Safety. For more information regarding Email Anti Spam [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/email_anti_spam.php] please drop by at [http://www.bye-bye-spam.com/]

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Viruses

Email attachments often contain viruses so you need to be careful whenever you open any type of attachment even if you know the sender. There are some viruses that can infiltrate your address book and then send email that is infected to everyone on your list. This means that you can get a virus from a colleague or a friend. The best thing to do is to communicate with the sender so that you know you are expecting an attachment.

Software for virus protection is your best bet against viruses. This software will scan all your email attachments when they are received on your computer. All computers that have Internet access will need to have antivirus software so that all systems are protected as one big whole. There are some viruses that will start with one computer system and then spread to the rest of the network, eventually encompassing all the hardware that is needed to access the Internet.

Phishing

Email can lead to fraud, which is yet another type of security risk. Phishing, is one type of fraud that will try to trick you into giving out personal passwords or banking information. This type of email will use the logo from a well known banking institution or online business after which they will ask you to update your banking information or your password.

Phishing provides a link that looks as though it is legitimate but that in fact will lead you to a false website. If you provide them with personal information you become a victim of theft or fraud on your credit card. This is also known as “identity theft”.

Email content and subject lines can be your clue to phishing. Instead of using your name the subject line might say something like “To our valued customer”. It isn’t hard to find some variant for personal names so be on the alert.

Less of clue to phishing is when a link is included that has nothing to do with the text in the email. You can verify this by highlighting the link and paying attention to the status bar. For example, if the email text is something about Microsoft, and the URL is [http://www.nowhereland.com], you have a good clue that the message you’ve received isn’t really from Microsoft.

There is software that can detect whether phishing is occurring. Even though this software isn’t fully mature yet it can at least identify if an email is fraud. Whenever you are asked for your credit card number or a password you should be suspicious. Always keep in mind that no legitimate banking institution will ask you to give personal information or to verify any passwords in the content of an email.

E-mail Backups

Your email, just like other data on your computer, should always be backed up. Most email programs will be easy to back up. All you need to do is export your email messages to a selected folder and then do a backup on this folder. You can use a backup program and put your email onto a writeable CD, DVD, removable disk, or any other type of media.

You also have the option of buying backup software that is specialized for backing up email. This software is moderately priced and eliminates the need to export your email to a folder.

You can automate most backup software so that backups happen at a time that is convenient without you having to lend a hand. You’ll have to find time in your busy schedule to configure this type of software. However, you’ll be no more busy doing the configuring as you would be if you need to replace an email that you needed.

Paul Wilcox writes about PC security and other related topics for the Security Manor website. Get more helpful information about protecting yourself against online threats at http://www.securitymanor.com

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