Spam.BlogSpot.com

Late last week, I started getting the calls. "I tried to send you an email, but the email bounced." Then this week, I received a few more saying the same thing. So some of my mail was coming to me, but not all of it. I started wondering how many emails I had been losing and for how long.

So I called my email provider GoDaddy to let them know that something was wrong with my email. During my hour long argument with GoDaddy tech support, who insisted that there was nothing wrong on their end, I got a better understanding of how email spam filters operate. The tech support contact insisted that either the people trying to send me mail were sending me emails with viruses attached or were targeted as spammers. The email did not make it through GoDaddy's virus/spam filter because either the sender had links that were listed as spam or phishing links, or there was a virus attached.

"So people that I have been working with or friends that I have been talking with for the last year all of a sudden have became spammers or contracted a virus all at the same time last week?"

The answer from GoDaddy - "yes".

"Even though they have no problems sending and receiving to anyone else but me, they are still being filtered properly?"

The answer from GoDaddy - "yes".

6 hours later, still no resolution. So I called GoDaddy back and talked to someone else. Thinking more about the fact that URL links could cause a spam filter to block messages, I had an idea. Since the people sending me email do not have any links in the email to me, could it be that my signature file (which has my website and blog links) could have been accidently registered as SPAM? So I send this guy my email with my signature file. A couple minutes later he is back on the line.

"Ok, that looks like the problem. You have your blog listed as http://www.getquik.blogspot.com/. BlogSpot has been registered as a spam host name. When you were sending your email out, and then people were replying, the BlogSpot URL was triggering our spam filter."

It's pretty crazy to think that one of the most popular blogging tools, BlogSpot could universally be listed as a spam domain, but most black list spam organizations do not have a good mechanism to handle a BlogSpot type scenario. I had moved this blog from BlogSpot to http://www.getquikblog.com/ a few months ago due to the fact that BlogSpot domains are notorious for being spam sites, but I had forgotten to correct my signature file. Since BlogSpot just got registered as a spam domain name with the service that GoDaddy uses to check for spammers/phishers, this just recently created the email debacle.

So the email has been updated to remove the BlogSpot URL and list the getquikblog domain name. A little yelling, tech support hell, and a waste of a few hours, but at least I got a good lesson in spam filters. The other lesson that I wish I had learned before starting with Blogger is that the Blog tool you use is important. Still debating whether to try and migrate to WordPress or TypePad, but I have a sinking feeling that the migration will be less than smooth. Although, tech support at GoDaddy expects BlogSpot to get off the black list, as there are too many legit BlogSpot URL users to blacklist everyone with that domain, I still recommend BlogSpot users to consider getting your own URL. Blogger does offer a migration tool, but it is not perfect. You can read my previous fiasco with this migration to see some of the issues you might run into. Part 1. Part 2.

By the way, if anyone knows a way to get my titles to hyperlink to each blog entry, I could use some help. This is one of the annoying inconveniences that occured in the migration process.