Spam Trap Honeypot email address
Meaning
A spam trap is a secret email address used by ISPs and blocklist operators to identify spammers and senders with poor list hygiene.
Common causes
- Purchasing or scraping email lists (hits Pristine Traps).
- Failing to remove inactive subscribers or hard bounces (hits Recycled Traps).
- Users making typos during signup (hits Typo Traps).
How to fix
- Never buy, rent, or scrape email lists.
- Implement double opt-in to prevent typo traps.
- Regularly clean your list by removing subscribers who haven't opened or clicked an email in 6-12 months.
Example bounce
N/A (Spam traps deliberately do NOT bounce; they accept the mail to silently record your IP as a spammer.)
FAQ
- What is a pristine spam trap?
- An email address created solely to catch spammers. It has never been used to sign up for anything. If you email it, you scraped or bought it.
- What is a recycled spam trap?
- An old, abandoned email address that an ISP disabled (returning hard bounces) and then silently re-enabled. Senders who don't remove hard bounces will fall into this trap.
Written walkthrough
- Amazon SES Says Email Sent But It Never Arrived: Where It Actually Went SES returned a 200 and a message ID, but your user got nothing. Here's what "sent" really means in SES, the three places messages silently disappear, and how to trace one step by step.
- Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? How to Find the Real Cause Your ESP says delivered, but customers never receive the email. Here's how to troubleshoot authentication, reputation, blocklists, and other common causes of spam placement.