Spam Traps – Guide For Email Senders

What are spam traps

Spam traps are a spam prevention method. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and blacklist providers create spam traps to lure in spammers and block them. With more than half of the world email traffic consisting of spam, spam traps are a necessary fraud-fighting tool.

Understanding Spam Traps

A spam trap, sometimes referred to as a honeypot, will appear to be a real email address that belongs to a real person – but it isn't.

Spam traps don't belong to an individual and have no value in outbound communication. Since spam trap addresses never opt-in to receive emails, any inbound messages would flag the sender as a spammer.

Not maintaining good email hygiene and not abiding by the rules of permission-based email marketing is the only way spam traps could end up on your email lists.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and blacklist providers (i.e. Composite Blocking, SpamCop) commonly use spam traps to catch malicious senders. But also, lawful senders who don't maintain their email hygiene or use poor list building strategies can raise a red flag, too.

Pristine spam traps, often collected by web scrapers, are the most dangerous because ISPs regard sending to them as abusive.