Emails sent by me landing in spam

[ah-blabla]

I just set up an account here and added my TLD, and have also configured my mail client to send mail thorugh the SMTP server. Unfortunately, any mails that I send end up in the junk mail box in Gmail / Hotmail / Gmx etc. Is there anything I can do to get around this problem?

 

[dragonpool]

as far as i know these services take account the number of mails from a certain server. then it acts as if they are junk if it identifies a server as potentially being a spam mailer. unfortunately the only way around this is to send emails from a server not identified as such. this means using a private smtp server or set up a new smtp server with another company.

the easiest thing is to warn users that your mails may show up as spam and ask that they whitelist your address.

 

[tittat]

adding a SPF / spoof records for your domain may sometimes help.
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/default.aspx

 

[ah-blabla]

I already had the spf set up, and it doesn't seem to do much. I might try setting up an smtp server at home to see if that changes things. Is there anything else I could try?

Edit://
Going through the Microsoft spf wizard, I discovered there are no PTR (reverse DNS) records for my domain. Could this be related to the problem?

Edit2://
Yes, the lack of PTR is the problem, since without it many servers don't accept mail as acceptable.

 

[Smith6612]

You could try e-mailing the companies who run the e-mail services that are spamming your e-mail. If you tell them that the server is a free hosting server but you use it for your website and your mail is not spam, they should be able to remove the block. I'm not saying they will but it's worth a shot rather than spoofing things. Also make sure you have a PTR with your e-mail as well. Just like how e-mail servers only accept mail from connections with a static IP, you need a Reverse DNS as well.

 

[ah-blabla]

Emailing the companies is a bit beside the point, since I don't know who I will be sending mail to in the future, and then there's private mail servers etc. The problem with PTR is that there can only be one domain per IP address (the PTR is IP specific, not domain specific), this needs to be arranged through the IP address owner of the server (lstn.net owns the IP for the server I'm on), and if this happens, no one else using the server can get PTR set up. (And this is a shared server, right?) I might as well try though.

 

[ah-blabla]

I just discovered the x10 server is on one blacklist, see:
http://www.apews.org/?page=test&C=131&E=277009&ip=69.162.111.26
Could this be something to do with the problem?

 

[zen-r]

I just discovered the x10 server is on one blacklist, see:
http://www.apews.org/?page=test&C=131&E=277009&ip=69.162.111.26
Could this be something to do with the problem?

One advantage of keeping up to date with (or Searching) the forum posts is that you tend to see what stuff comes up time & time again.

This topic is discussed fairly often.

You may wish to check out this other (current) thread, amongst others ;

http://forums.x10hosting.com/feedback-suggestions/101278-email-rejection.html

 

[ah-blabla]

Hmm... those topics seemed slightly different, in terms of mail not being accepted at all. And the only blacklist (apews) I could find the server was listed on isn't actually used by gmail or hotmail, so it seems to be more to do with the lack of PTR records for my domain. However the server now has correct ptr records for one domain (previously the PTR records pointed nowhere) which might fix the problem. I'll run some tests once I have time.

//Update: Yahoo mail accepts my mails fine now. (Straight to inbox), I can't test gmail though since my new address is on the safe list. I'm assuming the fact that the PTR records for the mail server are correct fixed the problems. (Note: The PTR records aren't set up for my domain, they are simply set up for one domain, i.e. starka.x10hosting.com)

 

[xav0989]

I personally use google apps (both for google documents and google mail), and for the fact that it can help me manage mailing-lists. In fact, most of the emails I use for my websites are in fact mailing lists that re-route the emails to the appropriate person.