Mail all going to bulk

[merv123]

Hi
This is my first post (just checked , apparently its my fourth) and i hope i have it in the right place. I have a social networking site and our site sends many emails, from the activation one at the very outset to message alerts etc.
The problem i am having is that they all seem to go to junk...
We initially thought the ip might be blacklisted but it was fine, then we changed out mta from 1st mail to exim.
now our mail server is on a seperate machine and ip ,running exim through cpanel( i think thats what my server guys said) but we are still having no joy.
Any help would be really appreciated

the site address is Welcome to Buzzchill
Thx.

[hostBrain]

Couple things you can try:

Make sure you have a reverse dns set up for the mail server.
Make sure the email is coming from a person, not just an email address.
eg) From: John Doe - not my@myaddress.com

[cppgenius]

I know that it is a real pain in the neck, especially when you trained your spam filter over quite a long period, but you could look at resetting the training data of the spam filter. I once found that I accidentally labelled a non-spam e-mail as spam. This e-mail must have contained a lot of spam triggers, because all our e-mail went to bulk. If you can un-train individual messages, try to look for legitimate e-mails that may be causing the problem.

[macaroo]

I have the same problem I have two very new dating websites that require email confirmation for sign up. What I did do was setup a yahoo email account for a test profile - when I received the registration email from the server it went into the bulk section. I went into the bulk folder and hit the "not spam" button. I'm sure when I did that that it mentioned that yahoo would be notified - can't seem to duplicate that message from yahoo. Anyway, mail from my server does not now go to the bulk folder in this particular yahoo account. I will try another test yahoo account.

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[blitzen]

Blacklists are for the serious spammers.

When you say "goes to spam", it can be a function of your ISP and email program. E.g., AOL is notorious for sending valid email to spam and blocking other valid email.

I assume that you are testing email sent from your website to your visitors and are concerned that your visitors aren't getting your emails.

Always copy yourself on emails going out from your website.
Why? You can catch holes in your website when spammers use your site to send mass emails.
It may be a pain, but at least you can monitor abuse at your website.
This doesn't work if you're on a shared email IP because another website might be the culprit.

We caught a spammer right away, however, AOL still blocked our emails from the few emails that got through. If anyone blocks your email IP, it'll be AOL. They have a tool where you can send a test email from the suspected IP at http://postmaster.info.aol.com/tools/ipverify.html.

If you don't get the reply email, then look hard at your software. After you fix it, send a message to AOL. They were helpful in unblocking our emails.

[southplatte]

one of the things to keep in mind, is that many PHP based programs modify the mail headers - so it may look like it is coming from domain.com but the actualy machine name is localhost.localdomain or just localhost - and the true mailer is the apache service or php service (many times its the apache).

So your PHP script sets it to be From: Your Name <name@domainnamehere.com> but the system appends it to be from apache@localhost or something like that.

So often the spammers setup machines to bulk email and would spoof the headers so with many ISPs when the PHP script modifies the headers it is picked up as spam, like wise with email client filters.

Just another avenue to check on.

[billyjones]

I have the same issues with the confirmation e-mails that are sent from my blog hosting company.

We've tried many of the answers given by others here, much of it is very good advice but sadly it's not enough. The problem lies in the fact that we are all relying on software and programming to sort it all out and software and programming alone will never solve problems made possible by software and programming.

The problem is spam. Software designers and programmers design and build spam filters. Unfortunately, SOME of these same software designers and programmers also invent ways around spam filters.

It's a problem that will always haunt us and eventually make e-mail and most Internet applications unusable if we don't soon get a handle on it. As a matter of fact the current efforts to solve the spam issues only contribute to the issue.

Someday people might wake up to the fact that there is a very simple solution to our problem. Question is: How many of our businesses are going to go belly up before we all see the solution?

You can find the solution here:
The Anti-Spam Reserves: Finally An End To Spam - BPN - The Home of the Blogging Poet Network
and the cost is far less than software and programming.

[vittorio]

Hi all,

I am holding a forum on PHP and have digged into this thing for a while.
Sofar I can state the following :

1) php mail() is per default taken to Junk folder in HOTMAIL and in BULK folder in YAHOO
2) Hotmail setting are a bit more complex than YAHOO to be targeted successfully
. . . if you want that your webmail works properly ask your DNS provider to issue an SPF record on your DNS SERVER
. . . thereafter register to Sender ID by sending an E-mail to : senderid@microsoft.com by stating your mail SERVER as follows : admin@Your_Server.com

If you want to avoid all this please use SMTP phpMAILER and NOT mail() [php-function]

For registration to my forum I have made all this personally, sofar I manage a reseller accoint and have access to DNS server through my WHM panel.

For more information visit my forum http://pr.c-php.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19
All details are available to forum members

[alienpest]

There are two businesses in my area whos ads apear on several of my sites, but when you try to reach them through any email account of any type from any computer, the/a filter blocks them and sends them back. It is strange to think that they are spending money advertising, but no one can contact them. I finaly got in touch with one of them, they just thought their ads wer not working well.

[southplatte]

Originally Posted by vittorio

Hi all,

I am holding a forum on PHP and have digged into this thing for a while.
Sofar I can state the following :

1) php mail() is per default taken to Junk folder in HOTMAIL and in BULK folder in YAHOO
2) Hotmail setting are a bit more complex than YAHOO to be targeted successfully
. . . if you want that your webmail works properly ask your DNS provider to issue an SPF record on your DNS SERVER
. . . thereafter register to Sender ID by sending an E-mail to : senderid@microsoft.com by stating your mail SERVER as follows : admin@Your_Server.com

If you want to avoid all this please use SMTP phpMAILER and NOT mail() [php-function]

For registration to my forum I have made all this personally, sofar I manage a reseller accoint and have access to DNS server through my WHM panel.

For more information visit my forum http://pr.c-php.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19
All details are available to forum members

The problem isn't (at least not in my experience and opinion) with the PHP mail() function, it is with the server configuration. PHP by default sends it from the user that apache or PHP is running as, generally apache@localhost or httpd@localhost and modfies the headers. With the SMTP you are specifying a user and password to send the email as, that the SMTP is setup to use, therefore the headers are not modified by PHP by default.

This triggers the spam filters. When I setup our server at work, it all ways went to our spam folder when sending customer contact messages to ourselves - the reason after reading the McAffee logs was the headers being forced to be different than the machine name.

Unfortunately on Linux, the machine name may be Server32.hostcompany.com for the FQDN - however with the virtual sites, they modify it to be www.yourdomainname.com or mail.yourdomainname.com and this automatically triggers spam filters since the mail header by default will contain the modified header and the original header that the sendmail or postfix programs use that is set system wide.

As soon as I set the FQDN and machine name to be the same, our mail was going through to our customers and passing our spam filter even after removing the allow rules that we had to setup prior just to be able to copy our various departments on the emails.

[vittorio]

Answer to : southplatte

Apache server is sending mails outsourced by mail() as nobody.
As soon as Hotmail server sees that it will cancel the incoming messages EVENTHOUGH your addresse has made his settings on his JUNK MAIL FOLDER priorly

So issue an SPF file on your DNS and subscribe to sender ID at microsoft if you please
I was forced to do that in order to get my Activation MAIL test to my phpBB-Forum wherein I have choosen to use mail() and not SMTP

[z28com]

I use Auto Response Plus and was having the same problem having my emails go to the bulk folder. I added an SPF record to the sending domain and it fixed the problem.

It's a very good idea to add SPF records to your domains to prevent spoofing.

You can check to see the status of your SPF by going to DNS Stuff: DNS tools, DNS hosting tests, WHOIS, traceroute, ping, and other network and domain name tools.

Put your domain in the DNS report. Scroll down to the bottom of the report and if everything is configured properly you will see:

PASS SPF Record
You have an SPF record. This is very good, as it will help prevent spammers from abusing your domain. Your SPF record (I don't check to see if it is well designed!) is:
"v=spf1 a mx a:spf.dreamhosters.com" [TTL=14400]

Otherwise you will see another message.


The important thing to remember is what whatever domain you put as the return/reply address, you should have configured an SPF record for it. For example, if you're sending email from Comcast's network and your reply address is "joeschmoe@gmail.com", the receiving server will lookup the SPF for "gmail.com" and see that the mail server from Comcast is not part of the SPF record set up by Gmail. So it thinks that the email is being spoofed and is then flagged as junk email and put into the bulk folder.

Whatever domain name you choose to put as the reply address, be sure to have SPF records configured to have the IP address of the mail server permitted to send email with that domain.

An SPF record in your DNS tells the world which mail servers are authorized to send mail with that domain.

Also see:
SPF: Project Overview

[joezstuff]

Hi,
My name is Joe and I had the exact problems that you had.I am coordinator for a Neighborhood Watch that has over 900 homes and soon to be 1500 homes. I was trying everything. I would send out e-mails only to find out that only 125 were only sent and I would have to wait an hour to send the rest. I tried other programs and just like you it turned into Junk e-mails, But I went to IContact and I have had "0" problems. They actually have a button that you can check to see if your e-mail will be sent out as junk or not. It tells you why, It's a great way to send your e-mails. I am not a sales person or I do not work for them, I really am just a neighborhood watch guy. I swear by this. It has help me out so much that I have to help you when I saw how much trouble you were having. Let me know how much better it is that what you are doing now. I put it on our website to let our Neighbors Know what we are using. and what we bought. Because we were having problems getting out e-mails. Now we even put up a sign up page from this. it works great!!
Thanks Joe
OAKS WATCH

[vittorio]

Thanks to z28com that confirms what I am trying to push through in this thread.
I was feeling like shouting at the moon

[joezstuff]

great!! z28com your a miracle worker.

[z28com]

Originally Posted by vittorio

Thanks to z28com that confirms what I am trying to push through in this thread.
I was feeling like shouting at the moon

Glad I could be of help.

I use my auto responder heavily for my visitors who request information. I was trying a windows based one for a long time from my home PC and was wondering why my results were so poor. Then when I decided to run everything on my web server with Auto Response Plus and set up the SPF's, the responses went to the moon. It was almost like all of the emails that were being sent through my ISP at home were going to nowhere. I was losing a ton of business from it.

Auto Response Plus is not much of a picnic to set up. You need to have forwarding addresses to handle undeliverables and stuff.

It doesn't matter if I was using an auto responder or not. Whatever the case may be, whatever mail server is sending an email to someone, the domain name I put at the end of the email address needs an SPF record with the IP address of the mail server permitted to send the email.

Look at the links in my previous post for more information on SPF.

[wilderness]

Originally Posted by billyjones

Someday people might wake up to the fact that there is a very simple solution to our problem. Question is: How many of our businesses are going to go belly up before we all see the solution?

You can find the solution here:
The Anti-Spam Reserves: Finally An End To Spam - BPN - The Home of the Blogging Poet Network
and the cost is far less than software and programming.

Hi Billyjones,
I checked out your solution. Although it might help I don't think it would take long before spammers would become accustomed to people camped on their front step.
The easiest solution would be to stop opening up spam emails. Some idiots must be opening their spam mail and buying the product or it would have become an entirely ineffective way to market and died a slow death a long time ago. So, the solution? Convince people to not open unsolicited emails.
Good luck with that though. We're talking IQ here.

[cppgenius]

LOL! merv, I completely misunderstood your question, but now I see what you mean.

OK now that I made a fool of myself , lets get back to the discussion.

Spam has become such a big problem that people tend to make their spam filters over sensitive. All the different techniques used by spammers make the situation even worse, because it really messes up the training data of the spam filter. You can take all the measures to make your e-mail headers appear as legitimate as possible, you can do everything by the book from your side, but you will always have a few incidents where the e-mail won't be delivered to certain recipients. This is all because of ineffective spam filtering, not only because of the limitations of the software and the designers, but also due to users who don't know how to properly implement and maintain these filtering tools.

The easiest solution would be to stop opening up spam emails. Some idiots must be opening their spam mail and buying the product or it would have become an entirely ineffective way to market and died a slow death a long time ago. So, the solution? Convince people to not open unsolicited emails.

good point wilderness, I wholeheartedly agree. Yes, convince people and educate them how to train their filters properly and what the optimal sensitivity should be for personal use.

It is really a sad story, on the one side you have people opening spam e-mails as if it is some kind of sport. On the other side you have people with spam filters so strict that you get the impression their inbox is some kind of sacred place and you need to send some holy e-mails to get past the filters.

The Anti-Spam Reserves is a good idea, here are a couple of other suggestions, reinforcing what wilderness said:
The Key To Beating Spam
Fighting Spam - Is It A Loosing Battle?

[billyjones]

Wilderness said, "Although it might help I don't think it would take long before spammers would become accustomed to people camped on their front step."

In my opinion you're still missing the point. The vast majority of spam is making billions for US and Multinational Corporations who are very sensitive to protesters and camera crews. Everyone is under the false assumption that spam is the sole product of guys hiding in their basements using their computers all on their own but those are the little guys. The major players in the Spam Wars are big corporations with affiliate marketing programs that encourage spam.

Sure, all of these companies have their affiliates check a box agreeing to their public anti spam policy but Almost none of these companies do anything about the problem. Why? Because these corporations are continuing to make record profits year after year.

The one thing that scares the top 1% more than anything in the world is protesters being followed around by television cameras. Everyone's efforts to date have been to go after the guys at the bottom but it's only when we go after the guys at the top that the problem (like any other ill that affects society) that the problem gets solved.

Going after the guys at the bottom is treating the symptoms rather than treating the cause. It's a tactic that never works no matter what the problem.

And debate if you like but in the end your businesses are going down the tubes because e-mail is only a few years away from becoming useless as a marketing tool. Either the industry polices itself or the industry dies.

[alienpest]

Well Said! Any Ideas on a strategy? I have never even used email as a marketing tool, but not being able to get through my customers, or my suppliers spam filter without showing papers at the checkpoint is getting pretty old!

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