Spam Trap Types and Sources

Spam Traps are an effective way to monitor your list hygiene practices. If ignored, they can negatively impact your sending domain reputation and may even lead to blocklisting. Here is a brief overview of the trap types and sources that available within our platform:

Pristine Trap - email addresses that are published on public web sites and have never been real user email addresses. These traps are created for the sole purpose of detecting senders with poor list acquisition processes. These traps are considered the most serious since emails sent to these addresses did not follow the recommended user opt-in processes.

Recycled Traps - email addresses that were once real user addresses but have been dormant and reclaimed by ISPs or security firms to detect senders who email unengaged users.

Mixed Traps - This is the designation of spam traps when the trap provider does not specify whether the hit was Pristine or Recycled. Mixed should be considered more serious than recycled since some of the hits may be pristine traps.

Parked Traps – These are email addresses hosted by a parked domain provider. These addresses can point to list quality issues, though they will not affect your reputation.

Typo Traps – Email addresses hosted on a domain that looks like a real mailbox provider, like gmal.com. These usually get onto your list when a real person tries to sign up but “fat fingers” their email address and accidentally adds a trap instead. These addresses signal that you should work to improve your enrollment process.

Abusix - Abusix provides the missing piece in today’s network security environment that allows for quick and reliable mitigation of network abuse and other cyber threats. Hundreds of Service Providers, Enterprises, and Cyber Security Product developers rely on Abusix to keep their networks secure and their users safe.

Cloudmark - a trusted leader in intelligent threat protection against known and future attacks, safeguarding 12 percent of the world's inboxes and 20 percent of mobile accounts from wide-scale and targeted email threats.

SNDS - The Outlook.com Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) gives you the data you need to understand and improve your reputation at Outlook.com.

Global Trap Network (GTN) - Passive - The passive network, uses proprietary data science techniques to detect the domains on other providers’ active networks. It can identify when senders using the SparkPost platform are sending to those networks without the customer needing a relationship with those other providers.

Global Trap Network (GTN) - Active - Proprietary spam trap network maintained by Sparkpost. These traps will not affect your reputation but can be used to gauge the effectiveness of your list management and hygiene practices.