HostGator Mail, SpamAssassin, 3rd Party Email Services

[Larry Tew]

I'm in the process of re-doing my site in WP with HostGator. I've been using their IMAP email for a month or so.

The spam is killing me. Not the spam that SpamAssassin correctly identifies, but the garbage that SpamAssassin completely ignores. I started with my score set to 5 and I've gradually dropped it to 1.8. Only a couple of legitimate emails got flagged, so not really a problem.

I talked to HostGator and was told that SpamAssassin is the only game in town. There's something about these emails that causes SA to completely overlook scoring them even though they are obviously crap. I get 5 or 6 copies of the exact same spam email every day but from different servers. There are 4 or 5 instances of this - so I might get 20 or 30 spams a day that SA ignores.

The HG rep even suggested looking into a 3rd party email service. I'd rather HG fix the spam or look into using a different spam filter. I'm not a high-volume email user and paying more money on top of my hosting cost isn't what I want to do.

My POP3 Godaddy email (same addy I've been using for years) RARELY let a stray spam through and I'm not aware of a single good email they intercepted in error.

Thoughts?

 

[lrixford]

Cloudmark is the best desktop based spam filter.

Cloudmark DesktopOne Free Anti-Spam Software | Cloudmark

 

[Josh]

I use hostgator in a slightly non-traditional way.

My gmail account sends and receives emails through my hostgator server so a copy stays there and a copy comes to my gmail account. Once it hits my gmail account google actually splits out what's spam and what's not. This let's me keep everything on the hostgator servers and a copy on the gmail servers. It takes a little work to set it up, but I can send and receive from my gmail account just like it's straight from my work account.

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

I also do that for my Pa site. It's pretty good at picking up spam vs. regular email.

 

[stuy119]

HostGator gets my website, but I run my email through a hosted version of Exchange with Google. For $5/month, I get full exchange capabilities and lots of integrations, plus cross-device syncing.

It's the best money I spend each year.