"The emails you want might end up in the trash. Your peers, sponsors and clients are vital to your success and one lost message can equal lost income."

Ahhh, SPAM. It's not going away but with newer, smarter SPAM filtering, the problem of unsolicited email is manageable. Then again, nothing's perfect.

If any one group has mastered the art of weeding out the crap, that group would be adult webmasters. We know how to configure the filters built into our email clients, whether those clients reside on our personal machines or online. We know the difference between an OPT-in mailing versus uninvited inbox stuffing. We know that SPAM filters save time, reduce stress and protect us from opening virus-laden attachments. Perhaps no other industry is more hip to the SPAM problem than the adult Internet.

Personally, I have roughly ten different email addresses. There are my two personal email addresses that come with my two different ISP accounts. One for the DSL account. One for the dialup account. I have the online Yahoo email that I opened years ago. I've got accounts for each of my five individual websites.

At one time, almost all my email accounts were setup so I could download each one to a separate folder in Outlook. Then I decided Outlook was too risky so I got Mozilla Thunderbird. Initially, I setup Thunderbird to receive some of my different email accounts. However, at some point I decided that my Thunderbird should only handle my uber-universal-ultimate-this-is-me email address. I decided to access all my other email accounts on a web-only basis. I've become intimately familiar with the SPAM filtering quirks of quite a few clients.

At this time, I check inboxes run by Yahoo, Godaddy, Webair, Hotmail, NetZero and Juno, along with Thunderbird. Each client has a SPAM filter and each SPAM filter operates in its own unique fashion. For example, Godaddy marks all emails as SPAM by default. I have to white list every approved sender. That's pretty damned frustrating. I've got two Yahoo accounts. One, I had since 1998. The other is the newer one that comes with my DSL connection. I've trained the old Yahoo account so well, that I rarely bother to check what's in the JUNK folder anymore. I just hit the EMPTY link on that one.

However, with the new Yahoo account, I make sure to take a quick peek at the JUNK folder each time because sometimes there's important mail in there. I check the JUNK folders of all my accounts simply because I've learned the hard way that SPAM filters are not flawless.

Here's the thing. A filter is just a filter. It's not a complete solution to your SPAM troubles. Online email services tend to automatically trash any email with sexual content in the SUBJECT line. Some online services are setup to assume that you don't want the emails coming from your sponsors, vendors or fellow webmasters. Most online email providers block the senders they determine are spamming you. If you want to get the communiqués you need to conduct your business, you can't depend on Yahoo or Hotmail or Godaddy to screen your mail.

I admit. I haven't tried some of the new email filtering services out there like SpamArrest. I understand how they work and it sounds good in theory. If a person wants to send you email, they must first pass through - and be approved by - SpamArrest's screening process. It sounds wonderful and I've had to go through that screening process in order to keep in contact with several of my fellow webmasters. Just the same, there's been more than one occasion where my initial request email gets lost. That tells me that SpamArrest is a great solution but an imperfect one.

There's nothing that can substitute manually browsing the contents of your SPAM/JUNK folders. Of course, you have to configure filters but that doesn't mean you should neglect them once you've done so. No matter how hard you try, the emails you want might end up in the trash. Your peers, sponsors and clients are vital to your success and one lost message can equal lost income.

Whether you use Outlook, Thunderbird, Yahoo or any other email client/provider, take the time to check out what's going on with your SPAM filters. Before you hit the EMPTY link on the JUNK folder, open it and make sure every sender in there belongs there. Go through the filters you set up manually and make sure they're up to date. SPAM filters and screening services are great but they're aren't perfect.

They save time but their efficiency should never be taken for granted. Check your SPAM filters. Open your JUNK folders. These tools are there to help you not replace you.