Why are my messages being marked as spam

[H2B2]

What can you do to avoid being marked as spam

A number of phplist users seem to have trouble getting their messages through the spam filters of email providers. This post briefly delineates a number of measures to keep your spam score as low as possible and to enhance the chances of reaching the inbox of your subscribers.

Check that your setup complies with RFC standards
Since spammers usually do not comply with (all) RFC standards, anti-spamming measures adopted by e-mail providers will tend to include a number of checks regarding RFC compliance.
- make sure you have a postmaster account (postmaster@yourdomain.com) for your domain.
- make sure you have an abuse account (abuse@yourdomain.com)
- analyse the email header of your messages and check for errors. For instance, check whether the Return-path address is correct. The Return-path address should reflect the message envelope address, which is usually defined through the message_envelope setting in config.php. This address must of course be an existing email account.
See also:
http://docs.phplist.com/PhpListConfigBounces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_message#Terminology
viewtopic.php?p=45136#45136
viewtopic.php?t=4235
viewtopic.php?p=32914#32914

Check your Domain Name Server (DNS) configuration
A badly configured DNS may trigger spam protection tools used by the mail providers of your subscribers, and your messages risk being rejected or marked as spam. You should therefore check your DNS configuration and ask your host to correct any DNS configuration errors (and warnings) you may find.
Services to check your DNS are available on the Internet, for instance:

http://www.checkdns.net/
http://www.zonecheck.fr/
http://www.dnsstuff.com/

For a list of other available web based DNS checking services, see this listing
For more info on DNS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system

Make sure your message content is not 'suspect'
- avoid phrases and wording spammers commonly use.
- do not use (too) many images.
- avoid using HTML tags that could increase your spam score, e.g. iframe tags, multiple large font tags and/or color font tags (better use inline CSS styles instead).
- avoid using scripts in your messages, like javascript, vbscript.
- correct any HTML coding errors in your messages, since these too will increase your spam score.

Avoid sending attachments other than pdf
Be careful with sending attachments other than .pdf files. Attachments like .zip, .avi, .swf, .exe, etc., may trigger spam filters.

Process bounces
In time, a portion of the users on your lists will eventually change their email addresses. This may occur quite frequently with popular 'disposable e-mail addresses' from webmail providers like gmail, hotmail, yahoo, etc. A number of those users will not bother to update their email addresses through the phplist preferences link, and their email addresses will therefore bounce. Since sending messages to many non-existent users is likely to look suspicious, you should make sure you regularly process bounces to clean up your user lists.

Limit your sending speed
Sending many messages in a short time span is often considered suspicious behaviour from the point of view of (web)mail providers. Try using the mailqueue_throttle setting in config.php to space messages apart by a number of seconds.
You could also run some tests with the experimental domain_throttle feature of phplist.
See also: http://docs.phplist.com/PhpListConfigSendRate

Other measures
- setup SPF or DomainKeys. See also this forum thread
- consider requesting inclusion in the 'whitelists' of important mail providers
- ask subscribers to 'whitelist' your From: email address in their email client or spam filter application
- Do not disable double opt-in by changing the phplist code base. Double opt-in (or "confirmed opt-in") is generally considered good practice and it will ensure that the users that subscribe really want to subscribe.
- make sure the unsubscribe link is easily available on every message you send. If your subscribers want to unsubscribe and cannot find the unsubscribe link, they will be tempted to mark your messages as spam instead, in order to get rid of them. Eventually this may result in your domain being blacklisted. See also: http://spamlinks.net/filter-dnsbl-lists.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_and_O ... ing_System

Bulk mail guidelines
Hotmail
Yahoo mail
Gmail

Further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-spam_techniques
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSBL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_spa ... by_country
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_ ... unications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003

[Guest]

Hi H2B2

Very interesting post, is taking some time to work through but as someone using Google Apps I came across the following that may be of interest to others.

In relation to the setting up of abuse and postmaster accounts, these are already set up by Google which they apparantly monitor. Therefore the abuse and postmaster addresses are reserved aliases that can't be used to create new users or nicknames.

http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/ans ... swer=33389

regards
jmids

[Gary Winnick]

There is nothing you can add to a spam message to make it not spam. Spam is not about CONTENT, it is about CONSENT.

If your member does not have the consent of the receiving party, it is spam and should be reported. This looks like a contact update business. I get these type of mesages all the time for people who I have never met. My CEO gets them from people who attended a speech he made. All of them are reported as spam.

If the message headers do not clearly identify the member sending the invitation, it will likely be seen as spam and reported. I only look at the sender, subject and first couple lines of the message (as viewed in webmail) to determine the bulk of my spam. Anything questionable, I do a closer look.

[caramel1982]

Thanks for this post. It is very informational. I have a mailing lists and sometimes my emails to them are considered as a spam even if those are legitimate email. I really appreciated this forum because I learned a lot. Now, for sure I will no longer be considered as a spammer.


Regards,
Caramel

[Slimey]

thanks for this, previously I had ignored the RFC complience, which got me marked as spam

[line101]

Hi All,

I am currently looking at PHPlist Vs outsourcing (icontact / constantcontact).

The mailing list providers claim to have established relations etc with ISP's to help increase delivery stats etc.
They provide various tools etc to help manage the lists etc. Is this a reality or do you have the same chances of delivery with phplists as you do icontact/constantcontact.

Does running your own PHPlist compare to the mailing list providers mentioned above?

I have a standard email set-up with web.com but also a dedicated server with servint.net. Would it be OK to send the mails via web.com and at what point do you require a more robust solution (i.e set-up something on my servint server).

Your thoughts/feedback are much appreciated.

[line101]

Sorry... Another question!

Is it a good idea to utalize a different domain to your corporate email / web address just in case your mails are flagged as spam... thus affecting your every day communications?

[corey26]

Im starting to think that some of my business emails are being flagged as well. What steps would I need to take to ensure that they are getting to the intended target and not being deleted or flagged?

[eleo]

H2B2, you're my idol!!! You so TOTALLY rock!