If you have a website that’s been live to the public for longer than six months, at some time you’ve likely received a seemingly endless stream of email messages marked as “undeliverable” in your inbox. It looks as if someone has been sending tons of SPAM using your email account, and its one of the more unsettling moments in website ownership.

What happened? Through the magic of server technology, it is possible to send email pretending to be from ANY email address without owning, or having access to, that domain. A random spammer can send out thousands of email messages from anyname@yourdomain.com. If you own the chosen domain, you will receive all of the bounces from those emails. This is a very frustrating situation for all of the recipients receiving the SPAM and also the main domain owner, who gets all the bounced emails.

What can you do? Since spammers aren’t actually using your email or server to send these messages, there’s not much you can do to stop them. However, hosting companies are getting better at quickly blocking mail coming from servers that are sending illegitimate email. Once the initial bounce-back subsides, you generally won’t get many more emails since the sending server will have been shut down.

If you ever encounter this situation and have questions, please don’t hesitate to call us here at Wright Strategies so we can help put your mind at rest.