“Spam” sounds like one thing. Look at a busy contact form for a week and you’ll find at least six, and they don’t all deserve the same treatment.
1. Junk spam
Link drops, crypto and trading tips, gambling, adult sites, cheap medication. Usually sent by scripts that post to thousands of forms a day, often with nonsense names and links in every field. Nobody wants it. Cayve blocks it by default.
2. Scams
Fake invoices, “your domain is about to expire” warnings, account-closure threats and phishing links. These are aimed at whoever reads the inbox, and the danger is that someone clicks. Blocked by default, and only when Cayve is confident.
3. SEO and marketing outreach
“Your website isn’t on page one.” “We’d love to write a guest post.” Sent by people, or by tools pretending to be people, usually from a template. Mostly unwanted, but some businesses do hire this way. Held by default, so you decide.
4. Sales pitches
Someone selling a product or service: software, staffing, equipment, financing. Often a real business, occasionally exactly what you need. Let through by default, labeled so you know what it is.
5. Job seekers
People asking whether you’re hiring. They’re real people, and for many businesses that’s welcome. Let through by default.
6. Real messages
Customers, readers, partners and everyone else you want to hear from. The only category that really matters, and the one a spam filter must never lose.
Why the difference matters
A filter that only knows “spam” and “not spam” has to lump the pitches and job seekers in with one or the other. Either your inbox fills with pitches, or a real job applicant gets deleted alongside the crypto spam.
Cayve labels each message with one of these kinds and lets you choose what happens to each, per site, in its rules: let it through, hold it for review, or block it. A florist and a staffing agency can make very different choices, and both be right.