Tutorial: How to get into the major email engines whitelist.

Andrew Boon posted 22nd of November 2010 in Dolphin.pro News. 15 comments.

A unity member mrpowless has submitted a nice detailed tutorial on how to white-list your site in major email engines. You know the story - you send legitimate email verification letters, newsletters or service emails and all of a sudden AOL's or Yahoo's filter starts thinking of your site as a source of spam, and you're cut out of big chunk of your audience.

 

This tutorial helps you fix this. Have a look and let us know what you think, so that we could properly reward mrpowless for his graceful contribution.

 

And the link:

http://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/wiki/TutorialTweakingSpamFilters

 
Comments
·Oldest
·Top
Please login to post a comment.
eaa-boonex
Thank you i will check this :)
eaa-boonex
But where is the Tutorial ?
Andrew Boon
Argggh... forgot the link. Fixed :/
Nathan Paton
@eaa-boonex: http://www.boonex.com/trac/dolphin/wiki/TutorialTweakingSpamFilters

@Andrew Boon: I expect you to be paying him, yes?
Andrew Boon
Most likely so, unless he requests something else. We're quite flexible on this one, since the goal is to have more quality docs for our users and we're all in to achieve it.

Now, I just want the community to have a look and respond on how they like it.
houstonlively
One of the reasons those mails get marked as spam in the first place, is because a lot of site owners use a 'From' email address that is from a different domain than the one from which the email is being sent. It's a common spam filter because that's the way most spam formatted and sent.
Andrew Boon
It would be cool if such remarks were also added to the tutorials, as comments, or P.S.s, or whatever - every bit helps and having it all in one document is very handy.
eaa-boonex
Magnussoft: Thank you :)
magic123
this is simply superb...i like posts like this and arguments like this
SkyForum
Wow! Very nice information. Thanks MrPowless for the contribution. It's greatly appreciated.
DosDawg
another reason these emails are being turned away from the likes of hotmail, live.com, msn.com are because of the template themself. i have been round and round with Microsoft on this very topic, where i submit a range of IP's for whitelisting, assign the IP to a server, and next thing the IP is blacklisted, said the spam filter has detected the majority of the email coming from the IP to be spam.

so i have to submit the email template with a copy of the email that is going out, and they write see more back saying the IP will be whitelisted in 24-48 hours. i have joined every frigging program they have to offer, and this is still occurring after two years.

this is nice information, and i think that more is to be done and said in regards t the automated emails that get fired from the dolphin suite. i think possibly the templates need to be looked at, and i know for sure, there needs to be an OPT out on the foot of every one of those emails.

the one thing i have found that is beneficial as well is an SPF Record. where its not required by any others, Microsoft obviously has a pet peave for SPF Records. just the most generic SPF record is all they want.

one of the most important records is the PTR or reverse lookup. AOL and the others will drop you like a hot potato if your PTR is not correct.

i may come back and add something to this, because i can assure you, i have had my rounds with this email issue.

Thanks MrP for the toot
DosDawg
@ MrP and Andrew,
just some additional information on whitelisting with Microsoft | HotMail | Live | MSN and the other entities they control.
in reading the tutorial, i have additional information and some links that are relevant, most likely not only to Microsoft, but to all other major email listings:

To help resolve the issues, please continue using the recommended programs and services for a substantial amount of time to improve the reputation of your sending IPs. Try to use programs such see more as SNDS, SenderScore and JMRP to monitor the health of your outbound mail server.
• Make sure that you have SPF/SIDF records in place. You can go to http://www.microsoft.com/senderid for more information on this.
• SenderScore Certified Mail Program. Many legitimate mailers and marketers have qualified and joined this "white listing" program to improve mail deliverability and decrease e-mail from being filtered to the Junk E-mail Folder. Sender Score is a third party program administered by Return Path. Sender Score (www.senderscorecertified.com) is the only white listing service to which we subscribe.

CONT'd
DosDawg
• Monitor user complaints. Windows Live Hotmail also has a sender complaint feedback loop program called the Junk E-mail Reporting Program (JMRP). Enrollment in this free program will benefit you as a sender as it will keep your e-mail lists updated and populated with interested Windows Live Hotmail Customers. This program will help you to remove those Windows Live Hotmail Customers who do not want to receive e-mails from your company. If you are interested in joining this program, please visit see more http://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsjmrpp&page=support_home_options_form_bye-mail&ct=eformts.
• Windows Live Hotmail has created the Smart Network Data Services program. This is a service that helps legitimate e-mail senders work with their customers and partners to reduce spam originating from their IP. To register, please go to http://postmaster.msn.com/snds/. This program allows a sender to monitor the 'health' of their IPs.

You can maintain your SPF records and use spam protection on your server as well. If you are running cPanel, you should be able to edit your Zone Records. To add an SPF record, i would recommend looking at the following site. It will assess your DNS Records, and provide suggestions of additional steps you may need to take.

Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard
This four-step wizard will guide you through the process of creating a new SPF record for your DNS domain. You should add this DNS record to your domain's DNS configuration. Note that you may need to manually edit the SPF record created by this wizard if you want to use some of the more advance features of the SPF format. For complete details please refer to the SPF record specification at http://www.microsoft.com/senderid.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/

CONT'd
DosDawg
Most domains send outbound mail through a relatively small number of servers. Domains should describe that set of servers in an SPF record in their DNS. Internet email receivers can then reject forged messages which don't come from an envelope sender domain's approved servers. This wizard helps domain owners identify all the servers which could be expected to send mail from their domain.
Source: http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html?mydomain=&x=33&y=7

ok thats it for now from me, hope this see more helps those who are needing this information.
 
 
Below is the legacy version of the Boonex site, maintained for Dolphin.Pro 7.x support.
The new Dolphin solution is powered by UNA Community Management System.
PET:0.16768097877502