On Aug 12, 2009, at 10:33 PM, email builder wrote:
I am wondering if anyone has advice on where there are any email
health checks online. I used to use dnsstuff.com but they have
since gone commercial.
You have been given links and other suggestions for this that are
sound, I would follow those suggestions.
It's frustrating to have your users' emails land in Yahoo or Gmail
spam folders, but not be able to understand why. DNS checks out
fine as far as I can tell (tried out intodns.com and did my own
DIGging) and all the rest as far as I am able to check. Checked the
big name RBLs and got nothing there, either.
At that point, you sound like you are doing ok.
Where do people turn to try to get feedback on their outgoing
emails? Even a spamassassin score checker would be nice, but
alas.... (and specific issues with Yahoo/Gmail are of course nearly
hopeless because those companies could care less about us little
people).
I have around 10 servers that have had issues with yahoo or hotmail or
aol, ranging from ending up in the spam folder, to bounces, to eating
the messages silently and not providing any data. I have been able to
resolve all cases.
Aol: http://postmaster.aol.com/
Start there, you need to get into their feedback loop, this will alert
you any time someone reports your emails as spam. They make it hard
by only giving a message id, which I find can be tough to track down
on a BCC/CC delivery with a lot of aol.com addresses in it.
Apply for their whitelist, follow the feedback loop reports, and act
on them, and you will be fine. Email their support system. While it
will take 10-20 frustrating emails, that had they just read the first
email in full, you will get unblocked.
* Different providers like different things, some like DKIM, others
SPF, and others something more proprietary, you just have to work with
them, and you can get in their good graces.
yahoo and hotmail
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/
http://postmaster.msn.com/
Their general policy is to send to the spam folder, and ask questions
later. If they do not do that, and you have a new IP they have never
seen, they may accept the message, not deliver it, and not notify
anyone about it. It is all about IP history, if you have none, you
are considered a bad guy.
With both providers, you will need to email their support system. You
will fill out a form, asking for attention. They will reply, asking
you to fill out the same form again. They will reply, asking for
clarification that you already provided in forms 1 and 2. Those will
then be replied to asking for specifics that you answered in form 3.
This will go on for a while.
I generally see it takes 15 emails back and forth to get resolution.
At some point, you will get a survey, to rate their performance on the
issue. This is when you know they have unblocked you. By filling out
the survey, at least with yahoo, that closes the ticket, so unless you
have tested you are done, do not fill the survey out until you are
sure you are deliverable.
They may get you to a real human, who asks you to do telnet tests, and
other things they should be doing on their end by looking at their
logs. Just go through the motions, be polite, or they will drop the
email communication and ignore. The email address of ticket-id-x...@silly-big-provider.example.com
will expire and you get to start it all over.
Many of the questions will ask how you manage your mailing lists,
which most of the time for me, are not applicable. Others ask
questions about a setup that would not be applicable to an outbound
only smtp host for "formmail" type things. You sort of just have to
logically fill in the blanks.
The up front forms you are filling out are just a process to get you
to a real human who will look into your issues.
Be diligent, I have never walked away with emails that could not hit
an inbox.
I have not ran into this issue with google, though with a close
personal friend in their gmail department, I would cheat on that
issue. If you do not have that ability, I do not know how to deal
with google, they seem rather vague about their systems.
During all this, you will be curious to know why the blocks are
happening, and how they determine them. Do not waste your time
asking, they consider it proprietary, and part of their anti-spam
strengths.
Hope that helps. It is a pain, but it can be done.
--
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
