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Spamming (as related to searchengines) is forcing unsolicited or unwanted web pages into a search engine's database.

People that have learned how spiders work, also learned how to fool them. Although your site may be of high-quality content, if you use any of behaviors defined as spamming, it can be blacklisted.

For directories, spamming usually means choosing an inappropriate category, capitalizing all letters, or using marketing language.

For search engines, definition of spamming varies. The following list includes behaviors defined as spamming by the top six engines: inappropriate site titles, descriptions and keywords; repetition of keywords, same color text and background (invisible text), tiny text, submitting more than once in a 24 hour period, mirror sites that point to different URLs, and meta refresh tags.

Anti-Spam Self-Help Checklist

Here is a list of things you can do to help prevent receiving spam in the first place:

Do not use a catchall email account on your domain(s). Only list aliases and POP accounts that you actually use. This stops the frequent spams that fire off emails to a list of names on a domain. 

Obfuscate your email addresses on your website, i.e. replace them with JavaScript "trick" email addresses, or, switch to web forms for initial contact, rather than displaying an email address.

Never, ever, click on any links in any spam - especially not to "unsubscribe". All this does is confirm to the spammer that they have a "live" address.

Configure your client to read any incoming emails in plain-text, never html. Html spam emails contain links to graphics and scripts on spammers sites, confirming your email address.

If you are using Outlook XP or 2003 you can disable viewing in html, instructions are given here: http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/plain_text.htm

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