There is a spammer that has been annoying me. They're doing things halfway legit, so they bypass a lot of filters. They're advertising a site called nextjob.us, mostly telling me about candidates who I'd want to hire who need H1B visas or green cards.

I've complained via SpamCop, and also directly to their ISP (Cogent).

I did a google search for them recently, and discovered that not only are they being blocked by google, but that they're asking on google's forums for help!

I quickly typed out my own reply, which has since been deleted:

      Gushi has posted an answer to the question "SPF/ spam":

      I would suggest that you stop sending spam, and quite possibly, stop sending email altogether. Then it will not be rejected.

      Nextjob.us spams me once a day, sending to an address that I never signed up to receive, and in fact don't even use. I am not an HR admin, I
      do no hiring, but you are still sending me job related mail. Why?

      Chances are, you either bought a mailing list from someone, and assumed it was valid, or you harvested email addresses from the web. Neither
      of these is appropriate.

      If you would like to discuss this with me, you may email me at google [at] gushi.org

And they emailed me back, again asking for help, and seeming somewhat apologetic:

From sales@nextjob.us Thu Jul  2 15:52:28 2009
Date: 2 Jul 2009 15:52:17 -0400
From: "sales@nextjob.us" <sales@nextjob.us>
Reply-To: NextJob.us <no-reply@nextjob.us>
To: "goo@gushi.org" <goo@gushi.org>
Subject: Re: Webmaster Help: SPF/ spam

Dear Gushi

Sorry for any inconvenience caused to you , how ever I want to clarify one
important point here, we provide unsubscribe link at the bottom of our email, so
if anybody's email is added accidntly to our list , they always have the option
to opt out. We are following same practice used by other major websites.

Now coming back to my question, do you still think that you can provide us some
inputs on how to proceed / what to do so that google does not treat us spammer.

Regards

While one might think I'd don my BOFH hat to handle this, I'm somewhat touched, because I know the answer to this.

My response was long, and almost didn't get to them, because they set their "Reply-To" header to "no-reply@nextjob.us". This alone indicates a serious case of "you don't know how this works".

> Dear Gushi
> 
> Sorry for any inconvenience caused to you , how ever I want to clarify 
> one important point here, we provide unsubscribe link at the bottom of 
> our email, so if anybody's email is added accidntly to our list , they 
> always have the option to opt out. We are following same practice used 
> by other major websites.

Like who?  Please give me actual names.

Other major websites that do this are also sending me unwanted, bulk, 
commercial email.  The fact that you include your contact information 
makes it compliant with US law and makes you safe from lawsuits, but that 
does not stop people (or google) from blocking you on their own mail 
servers, complaining to your ISP, or other actions.

I suspect if I blocked your email outright, nobody I know would complain 
"hey I'm not getting my nextjob.us emails".  I suspect nobody's complained 
to google, either.

Note that in the past the ability to use a "removal" link has been highly 
abused by spammers.  In some cases, it has indicated a live person on the 
end that actually READ the email all the way through, which is like gold 
to a spammer so "just opting out" it's not something everyone wants to do.

Also, some spammers are outright criminals: they use infected systems, 
distribute viruses, and propagate fraudulent products.  Is this someone 
you want to identify yourself to, or just quietly block?  The lawmakers 
didn't understand this when they passed the CAN-SPAM act.

However, you're actually posting on the google forums, which implies you 
might be somewhat legit, or at least very new and clueless.  You use your 
own mail server, you set up SPF records.  You're hosted inside the US, 
your netblock is correctly allocated to you.  These are all non-traditional.

Personally, I do not reward any website that tries to reach out to me like 
this.  It only makes the problem worse.  If I am looking for an HR firm, I 
will do my own research on who to use, and I will ask my friends and 
colleagues who they would use, not just use the first name that 
pops into my inbox.

(Just like I would not expect safe drugs, real rolex watches, or accurate 
mailing lists from those people).  However, it seems that email marketing 
such as that feeds on the .001 percent of people who click the links, and 
that makes it profitable.  If this is your philosophy, most of the rest of 
this email may not benefit you.

> Now coming back to my question, do you still think that you can provide 
> us some inputs on how to proceed / what to do so that google does not 
> treat us spammer.

Absolutely, I will try.

You send email to people who did not ask for it, and who do not want it. 
That is the common definition of "spam".  Since you sent it, you meet the 
definition of "spammer".  Sorry.  If you are going to continue to meet 
those definitions, the rest of my advice won't help.

I understand that you are a new business, and I understand that direct 
email marketing is part of your model.  So my advice will be at the end of 
this mail.  But the long and short is: there's no easy answer to this.

It requires changing the way you do business.  However, keep in mind that 
nextjob.us has been annoying me for many months, and I'm still taking the 
time to write a (long) email to try and offer earnest advice, and I've 
been working in the anti-spam and mail-abuse field for many years.

How google works:

If most people see your email in gmail and click "report as spam" or move 
it to their spam filter, google starts to understand that all the mail you 
originate is unwanted/unneeded, and acts accordingly.

If some people see the email in their spam box and move it out, then 
google will not block it FOR THEM, but I think the overwhelming majority 
of people at google you send emails to will consider it spam.

Also, google is a SEARCH ENGINE.  So they know a thing or two about how 
popular a site is.  They have the ability to follow links in emails and 
index them, and at the same time know if other people are linking to them 
(as they would with a normal site), or a spam landing page.  Which do you 
think yours looks like to google.

Address Harvesting:

I see that you have my "goo@gushi.org" email address up there.  I've 
looked back through my email, and I've never EVER used that for anything. 
The only place it shows up is when you search, and you come across a 
"protected" email address like [goo...@gushi.org], which was probably how 
it got in your list.

I have the whole domain coming at me, and when people want my email 
address, I give them one.  For example, you'll notice on a google site, I 
listed google@gushi.org.  If I met you at a trade show, I may have given 
you nextjob@gushi.org.  In this way, I can track who uses/sells/trades my 
email address.  It's also a matter of a very simple script to find out 
every address at my domain that was ever sent to, and block any others.

Let me ask a question which I understand you may not be able to answer. 
How did you get that email address?

Did you:

a) Buy it from some third party?  Maybe one that claimed it was a list of 
HR people?  If so you paid a lot of money for bad data.

or

b) Scour the web for as many email addresses as you could find and sent 
mail to them all?

or (even worse)

c) Find a domain like mine that accepts mail, and just try addresses and 
see if they work?

I don't do hiring, and I think you'll find a lot of the people you are 
mailing do not.  More than reaching an unintended audience, this gives you 
a greater problem: statistically speaking, the mail that you are sending 
people has diffent words in it than the mail they prefer to get.

For example, if I am a doctor, and I get a lot of emails I signed up for 
that include the words Prescription, Healthcare, Pharmacy, Drugs -- then 
filters will also let more spam through to those people that involves 
this.

You send people mail (and you send it near-daily) that doesn't "look like" 
most of the other mail they've gotten.  This makes it more suspicious to 
google, and rightly so.

For a more in-depth explanation, look here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_spam_filtering

Anyway, here's my advice.  It may not conform to your business model, and 
you may not have the money to do it, but it will absolutely work for you.

What you need to do are as follows:

1) Get rid of your current mailing list.  Seriously, if I'm in it by 
mistake, so are other people.  And I suspect greatly that those numbers 
are in the majority.  (Case in point, are you getting the returns you 
expect from your mailings?)  Perhaps send out one more mailing to it 
saying "Hey look, we were stupid, we're sorry, but if you WANT to keep 
receiving mail from us, click here".  (I think you'll find most people are 
uninterested, so it's only costing you more for the bandwidth to mail 
them).

2) Spend the money and get a list from a REAL marketing firm (may I 
suggest Dunn and Bradstreet as an example).

3) Try other means of marketing: actual postal mail, flyers, trade shows. 
The difference between these and email is that they cost money.  Heck, 
make up some promotional materials: magnets, letter openers, keychains.

If you're sending something out that costs money, what it means to people 
is that you care that it gets to people who will read it.  With email, you 
don't care about the quality of your list and that's the problem that's 
led to your google issue.

If you INSIST on continuing to use email marketing, sign up with a service 
like http://www.returnpath.net/, who will audit your mailing procedures 
and will vouch for your legitimacy -- and will also certify that you 
actually honor opt-out requests.

Try looking at the "Standards of Membership" requirements here:

http://www.returnpath.net/commercialsender/certification/faq/

Or this:

http://www.returnpath.net/commercialsender/professional/deliverability/

4) While you're marketing, put out a press release from time to time: it 
will serve to legitimize you, the longer you've been in business, the 
better.  It also means that you invite the media to ask you for comments 
on related subjects, which is really cool.

5) Try to grow your site organically.  Try to build a member base. 
Encourage people to tell a friend about it, encourage people to pass along 
information.

6) Put actual CONTENT on your site, and put things up that people are 
interested in reading.  Put previews in your emails.  It seems that your 
focus is on people who want to work in the US but who mostly need H1B 
visas or green cards.

Perhaps some articles about how this is superior to outsourcing, perhaps 
some "success stories" where you've helped customers.  Put up tips on 
successful interviews, how to write better resumes.  Make your site one 
people will WANT to visit and tell their friends about.  Yes, this may 
mean finding some good writers to write content for you, and it may even 
mean paying them.  Put up a blog, even if it's just about your email 
marketing failures.

7) Instead of cramming job applications down people's throats, set up an 
RSS feed on your site, so people actually can subscibe to this in their 
readers.

8) Run a legit business.  Offices, business cards, phone numbers, actual 
locations, phone listings.  Being a startup is fine, but you can only do 
it for so long.

9) People who comment on articles and blog entries and show interest can 
also be *asked* if they want marketing material -- and if they remember 
your site and remember visiting it, they'll know that you also honor the 
opt-out.  This will do wonders for you.

10) Refresh and rework the design of your site every year or two.  Keep it 
fresh, make people talk about it.  If your site is correctly designed with 
CSS, this is very easily done and requires little-to-no code changes.

That's all.

I am not suggesting these steps to "fool google", either.  I am suggesting 
it because it will help you and make your site more popular to your target 
audience.  The key is in those words:

Target == a thing you want to reach, 
Audience == People you perform for who are interested in you.

Not "recipients", not "email addresses", not "prospects".  Keep it in 
mind.

That's your goal.

Seriously, if you do the steps above, the google problem will solve 
itself.  But if you do those, and they work...it won't matter to you so 
much.

Good Luck,

Dan Mahoney

Will they actually read it? If so, will they follow any of it? Who knows. Either way, I think it's good advice.