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Are my mails going to Spam Folders?

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  • 15-11-2010 10:55am
    #1
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,836 ✭✭✭✭


    Hi there,
    I've had some reports from customers that my replies to their on-site form queries, have gone to their junk mail folder.

    Is there any way to check how often this is happening without asking everyone I reply to? How can I be sure prospective customers are getting my replies? Is it based on the mail server or would it be to my domain being blacklisted for some odd reason? If one @gmail address blocks me, does that mean all @gmail addresses I send to will block me? Same with hotmail etc? I've never spammed or sent out mass mails, I only ever reply to forms sent through my site (with customers email on them) or direct mails sent to me.

    My domain is hosted on blacknight, I'm using thunderbird, it's a .ie address and I've recently changed from the blacknight server to mail1.eircom.net after blacknight changed something which made my mail stop working and I had to use eircom now instead, would this effect anything? I've yet to get the blacknight server set up properly.

    Any feedback appreciaed :)


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    #2
    brianwalshcork
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭brianwalshcork


    I'd say that the reverse DNS lookups on your mail domain are not matching the SMTP server that your mails are being delivered to the reipents's mail server from.

    If your MX records show that blackknight are handling your incoming mail, then life will be a lot easier if your use blacknight's servers to send your mail also.

    You should probably try to fix the original problem that you had with Blacknight.

    And to answer your question - there's no reliable way of checking where your email ends up, or whether the recpient reads the email or not. Not every server honours read receipts, users might choose not to send them.

    A PM or forum based system would be much better - the users generate the query on site anyway.


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    #3
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,836 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Thanks for the reply :)

    The first bit was a bit confusing, I'm not too up to date on the technical stuff, but you reckon if I sort out the issue with blacknight, it should help things as much as is possible?

    With regards the PM or forum based idea, I'm not sure what you mean? Are you suggesting I put a forum on my website? I don't think this would be suitable for the type of site it is, what's your own view? :)


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    #4
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,836 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Discussed with a blacknight rep here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056068622 seems the server itself wouldn't have too much of an impact..


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    #5
    brianwalshcork
    Registered Users Posts: 607 ✭✭✭brianwalshcork


    Hi Cormnie,

    The blackknight rep is pretty much correct in what he is saying, but the problem is what I thought it was, or at least partly what I thought it was.

    So, it's clear now what's happening on your side, you are sending emails from cormie@cormiesdomain.com (for example) out over your Eircom's network to Eircom's ISP server, and Eircom's mail server is forwarding the email on to the end user.

    The issues you are having are due to the spam filtering the recpients are doing when the mail reaches them.

    If their spam filters do a reverse DNS lookup on cormiesdomain.com and see that it is hosted by blackknight, then they can ask the blacknight DNS servers for an SPF record, which is a list of the servers that are authorised to send email for cormiesdomain.com. This list will NOT contain the eircom mail servers so your email will be flagged as possibel spam, and end up in the users junk mail folder.

    Even if this isn't happening, the recipient might have spam filters in place on their mail servers that scan the incoming emails for spammy words or phrases.

    Spam is a real problem, and theirs no perfect solution. You're not a spammer, but some of the things your doing make it look like you are to filtering software.

    So the simplest solution remains to switch back to the blacknight services for your business related stuff, and either get rid of / don't use the eircom account, or see if you can configure thunderbird to use a different out going mail server for the eircom account, or just forward the eircom emails to a blacknight mail account and reply from there.


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    #6
    cormie
    Registered Users Posts: 20,836 ✭✭✭✭cormie


    Thanks a lot for that reply and for the PM. To be honest, it's all a bit over my head but I very much appreciate the time you put into the information you sent me so thanks again! I think I get what you're saying though :)

    If you check again the SMTP thread I made; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=69184557#post69184557 a new port was suggested, I just tried it and it seems to have worked, so hopefully this is a solution for me :)


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