When you submit articles or directory listings for your website you're often required or find it a good idea to include an email address. This allows potential customers to contact you directly and does make good overall sense. However sometimes this address can be exploited and picked up by people or programs sending spam email to whatever address they get their hands on. It can also lead to a lot of junk mail when people decide to pull a prank and enter this email address into junk mail or newsletter websites. This can be very annoying as your in-box can end up over run with unwanted emails. It only takes a few spam emails a day to arrive in your inbox and very soon you start to feel as though you are under siege.

Because of this you will want to be careful just how you decide to proceed. The best way is to create an email address specific to your website or to the project you are working on. It looks more professional to use an email address that involves @websitename.com, however if you are only starting out and your usage limits are low then this could easily eat up all available message space before you get the chance to empty it. It's easier to use a free web-based email account if possible for any articles or classified style advertising you do. This way you can get contacted by legitimate parties but also avoid it filling up. It will also make it very easy for you to keep all the junk that may come in separate to your general business email contacts made through your website or offline advertising. I strongly recommend using GoogleMail as your free account.

When you do publish content in this way, put an expiry date on it, and remember to go back and delete the advertisement and your published email address when it's done. By doing this you can manage to avoid long-term junk mail. It will also protect you against forgetting about the advertising which can mean missed leads by not checking for legitimate responses. By using this method you can protect the space you're paying for and still get the word out about your business.