You've heard the expression, "He fell in with the wrong crowd and it wasn't long before he got in trouble".

It happens every day. Impressionable people get involved with the wrong crowd, and sooner or later they they do things that label them as being part of the wrong crowd.

It business it works the same way. Here's an example.

I have been testing a new spam filter that checks the origin of incoming mail against DNS spam blacklist servers. Any email that originates from a server on the blacklist is marked as spam.

Surprisingly, this method actually works. The amount of spam I get has dropped from 800 messages a day to under 10.

But once in a while, a legitimate email is labeled as spam - almost always because the sender has chosen to host his web site with a company known for hosting spammers.

The filter assumes that since the sender of this email is running with the wrong crowd (hosting with known spammers), the message is probably spam.

While this evaluation may not seem fair, it's how the world works. If you are perceived to be running with the wrong crowd, you'll be treated the same as those actually in the crowd.

So when it comes to your business (and your web host), be sure you're not running with the wrong crowd.

To check to see if your site is on the Spam Blacklist visit http://www.bmyers.com/public/628.cfm?sd=30