How do I stop outbound emails going to spam folder.

[TheGeekestLink]

Lots of our emails are finding their way into spam folders.

Is there any way to stop this?

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

You mean emails you send out end up in the recipients spam box?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Normally this is down to the way the server is setup, or the fact that your domain has had lots of reported email spam form it.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'm finding lots of our emails are going direct to spam. Is there any way around this as customers only find our emails sometimes days later...

Pretty fed up of it now. It's been going on since we started business.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

you need to find out why. often it is an open proxy on the mailserver (or so i was told when I had this issue). changed hosting and all was well.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

you need to find out why. often it is an open proxy on the mailserver (or so i was told when I had this issue). changed hosting and all was well.

I've changed hosting and it still didn't do anything... Stupid technology.

I've found my domain isn't blacklisted...

 

[threenine]

Check the proxy domains haven't been blacklisted. A lot of the hosting companies et al, would have inadvertently had some of the proxy servers blacklisted do to other customers abuses etc, this could also affect you, also if you're sending a high volume of emails from your domain, it may look suspicious to the email police out there.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

Thanks, I'll mail my host tomorrow and see what I can find out

 

[OldWelshGuy]

http://mxtoolbox.com/ try that and hit blacklist

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Are emails sent directly from your mailserver or via your ISP's mail gateway ? And if it's the former is the IP address they are being sent out from listed as one of your MX records ?

Some of the better email scanning solutions do a lookup and if the source IP address doesn't match one of the MX records for your domain then they automatically mark them as Spam.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

So much useful information. I'll have this checked tomorrow

 

[justbought.it]

Lots of our emails are finding their way into spam folders.

Is there any way to stop this?

No one seems to have mentioned HTML yet.

I know it's old school but plain text e-mails do have a higher likelihood of being read. Some mail clients weight HTML more than others as an indicator of spam. I don't think Google mail does any more but Outlook and Apple Mail certainly do.

I hope this helps.

Glen.

 

[antropy]

How about switching all your email over to Google Apps? It did used to be free - now it's $5/month per user but it's very cool:
http://www.antropy.co.uk/blog/google-apps-free-standard/

 

[edmondscommerce]

I would suspect this is down to your reverse DNS not being set up properly

Have a look at this pretty comprehensive answer

(you don't need to log in)
http://www.quora.com/Email-Delivera...ng-marked-as-spam-and-increase-deliverability

 

[iboxsecurity]

Another thing to consider is perhaps whether these emails are transactional or bulk emails? i.e. marketing.

I would also try and determine which mailboxes they are getting spammed in, i.e. is it JUST hotmail or yahoo etc. That can help determine the problem.

We found our emails were going to spam straight away in Hotmail turned out to be an IP/DNS issue.

 

[Ali-v-8]

As Paul has hit the nail on the head.
Unfortunately some spam filters are now picking up image and links as potential spam. once you have been listed there is nothing you can do - but you can create an email account strictly for email marketing - this will stop your main web address being blacklisted as a spam site (not currently a ranking issue but i wouldn't hold my breath).

 

[dx3webs]

We could do with some more info..

What mail service are you using?
What sort of emails are you sending? simple communications or marketing?
How many emails are you sending? <100 a day? > 500?
What sort of content are you sending. Adult? Pharmacy? or fluffy bunnies?

 

[fisicx]

It's also possible that the customers have marked similar emails as spam in the past and the spam filter is giving your messages the same spam score.

 

[andygambles]

Are emails sent directly from your mailserver or via your ISP's mail gateway ? And if it's the former is the IP address they are being sent out from listed as one of your MX records ?

Some of the better email scanning solutions do a lookup and if the source IP address doesn't match one of the MX records for your domain then they automatically mark them as Spam.

Which is a stupid thing to do since many do not use the same server o send mail as receive it.

 

[andygambles]

If you give out the domain then more appropriate advice can be given.

A few things to check

- Always send all outgoing mail (except email marketing) out via the same server system. This allows your sending IP to gain a reputation (hopefully positive).
- Don't use your ISP's outgoing SMTP servers. They're abused by thousands.
- Don't use the BCC field to send to multiple people.
- Make sure you have SPF configured correctly http://www.openspf.org/
- Add DKIM to your outgoing mail (if server supports it).
- Make sure sending server has rDNS set-up.
- Make sure your outgoing mail server is not an open proxy.
- Check the mail server logs (if possible) to see all of your outgoing mail items and make sure someone is not sneaking bulk mail in.
- Check any contact forms on your website are up to date code wise and not allow spammers to exploit them.

Again if given the domain then can start to narrow things down.

 

[TheGeekestLink]

No one seems to have mentioned HTML yet.

I know it's old school but plain text e-mails do have a higher likelihood of being read. Some mail clients weight HTML more than others as an indicator of spam. I don't think Google mail does any more but Outlook and Apple Mail certainly do.

I hope this helps.

Glen.

Thanks so much for this! I've tried this and so far, it seems to be working with much more success.

Incredibly helpful thread. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to post on it. And hopefully, it might help other businesses going through the same thing.

 

[justbought.it]

Thanks so much for this! I've tried this and so far, it seems to be working with much more success.

Incredibly helpful thread. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to post on it. And hopefully, it might help other businesses going through the same thing.

No worries, glad I could help.

Glen.

 

[a1anm]

We used to have the same problem so started using http://sendgrid.com/ and noticed a vast improvement. They are free up to so many emails and after that it is very cheap.

 

[andygambles]

Thanks so much for this! I've tried this and so far, it seems to be working with much more success.

Incredibly helpful thread. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to post on it. And hopefully, it might help other businesses going through the same thing.

This is may have "solved" the problem but is actually masking the issue that your email set-up is most likely badly configured.

A HTML email on it's own should not be enough to trigger a spam filter. But add that with the weighting of other factors and it probably pushed it over the edge. I'd recommend checking out your full email set-up.