My emails ending up in junk folder

[wanting2learn]

When I email people from my email address e.g. tom@mydomain.com people tell me that it always ends up in their junk folder.

I do not want this to happen as lost of people never check their junk folder and may miss my email.

I was thinking of sending an email from e.g. mycompanyname@googlemail.com. This will not end up in the junk folder but it looks less professional.

How can I solve my problem?

Thanks

[fisicx]

A lot of people have filters set that automatically junk mail from unknown recipients. So if you have a form on your site and you reply by email then you are an unknown recipient. Hotmail is particulary bad at doing this - I don't even get as far as the junk folder, the message just gets rejected.

There is nothing you can do about it except tell people about the problem on the site.

[maria102]

I've been using mailchimp to send out email campaigns and they give quite a lot of advice on avoiding spam filters, ie avoiding using spammy words etc. Depending on what you are sending, this may reduce the problem rather than solve it?

[wanting2learn]

Thanks for the replies,

I know if I use an email like mycompanyname@googlemail.com or mycompanyname@hotmail.com then I will have no problem. Should I do this? It is less professional but I know at least the email gets through.

Thanks

[ozbon]

There's a number of other things as well.

One thing that seems to help on not ending up in spam is to have a couple of other accounts on your mail account, usually postmaster@site.com and I usually set up siteowner (or owner)@site.com as well. I don't understand it completely, but having the postmaster@ account seems to be something that works in automated domain/mail-checking stuff.

Personally I wouldn't use the googlemail/gmail option - as you say, it looks less professional (although I've recently been gobsmacked by how many professional people seem to rely on gmail for everything) but also dilutes things - and confuses customers - by having potentially sitename@gmail.com and me@site.com as email addresses they can use.

[ozbon]

Of course, the other thing is to say on the website "We will confirm this by email. If you don't receive it, please check your junk mail folder"

Not ideal - but it can help too.

[fisicx]

I know if I use an email like mycompanyname@googlemail.com or mycompanyname@hotmail.com then I will have no problem. Should I do this? It is less professional but I know at least the email gets through.

Could still end up in the junk mail folder if the filters have been set up to reject all unknown email addresses.

[scudulike]

Is thereanything else in the body of your email that might be tripping a junk filter? A signature or logo could do it....

[wanting2learn]

No, no signature or logo, just plain text.

[scudulike]

OK - will PM you my email address. Its an Exchange mailbox, going into Outlook - send me a mail & I'll see if it goes in junk, and why....

[fisicx]

There really is nothing you can do. If you or your email triggers the junk mail filter then that's going to happen whichever email address you use.

It's also quite possible that some of the emails aren't even reaching the recipient - spam assasin could be killing them off before they get to the email account.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

When I email people from my email address e.g. tom@mydomain.com people tell me that it always ends up in their junk folder.

I do not want this to happen as lost of people never check their junk folder and may miss my email.

I was thinking of sending an email from e.g. mycompanyname@googlemail.com. This will not end up in the junk folder but it looks less professional.

How can I solve my problem?

Thanks

PM me the email address you are using and send me an email to chris@dwebs.ltd.uk

I assume you have SPF, DomainKey's, DKIM all setup? (I will do some checks if you send over the email address)

The key to getting through to hotmail, yahoo and gmail is a well setup email system.

[Dwebs-Ltd]

I've had a look at this

- Mail servers in MX records have no RDNS entries
- No SPF record
- Outbound mail server's IP Address is listed in multiple DNSBL's
- No DomainKey's / DKIM

Chance of successful delivery to Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail = next to none :(

Typical 123-reg / webfusion / pipex mess up.

[wanting2learn]

Thanks Chris,

Is there anything I can do? Could I change email provider etc?

Thanks

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Thanks Chris,

Is there anything I can do? Could I change email provider etc?

Thanks

- RDNS entries webfusion need to fix
- DNSBL listings webfusion need to fix
- SPF record you can add
- DomainKey's / DKIM will depend if 123-reg support it, I assume they don't.

You could move email provider it will require a couple of DNS alterations but nothing major.

[fisicx]

Damn you're clever Dwebs - I can just about set up an email account if the box tells me what to put in it. The rest of your techspeak went straight over my head.

[wanting2learn]

Thanks again Chris,

I dont know much about email setup. Do you know a good email provider I can move to that will have all of the above fixed?

How do I add an - SPF record?

Thanks

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Damn you're clever Dwebs - I can just about set up an email account if the box tells me what to put in it. The rest of your techspeak went straight over my head.

We handle a lot of email for businesses who don't host websites with us. The primary goal is always to get email into the recipient's inbox.

Its all down to the correct setup and attention to detail :)

[Dwebs-Ltd]

Thanks again Chris,

I dont know much about email setup. Do you know a good email provider I can move to that will have all of the above fixed?

How do I add an - SPF record?

Thanks

Have a look at http://dhosting.co.uk/email.html

The SPF record is a DNS entry, I can't tell you what you will need to put for webfusion as I don't have a list of their outbound email servers :(

If you host your email with us we will do all the DNS setup and make sure everything is setup correctly :)

[ozbon]

Dwebs - Any chance you could explain or add a bit more definition for the terms you used? I'm fairly techie, so I know what the DNSBL etc. are, but still had to look up SPF myself.

So just for the non-techie people on the list, I'd suggest some definitions would be useful for future reference...

Cheers.