Need help - email I send out are being classed as spam

[mikefly]

Heya,

web searches on the topic inevitably lead to advice on how to get less spam -- but I need help removing my address from blacklists.

Earlier this year, I was travelling abroad, and sent travel updates to around 200 people -- (bcced) - I suspect this is what has led much of the email I send out to go directly to the receivers spambox.

Any advice on how to correct this would be greatly appreciated - I really like my address, and don't want to have to change it!

Thanks for any help,

Mike

 

[McGiord]

If I were you I will try to do this to figure out what is going on:
1) create 3 new email accounts with the domains that are rejecting your emails.
2) send emails to each of them
3) check if they are still "spam"
4) Call/email their support team and find out what is going on
________
health shop

 

[mikefly]

hmm

I don't actually know which servers are turning my emails away - my guess would be that yahoo and gmail are doing so -- but it's hard to say.

I just know that I've sent email to people, and they've never received it -- don't recall who it was anymore - just got back from a trip, and now have time to deal with the problem!

Mike

 

[MisterMe]

Server-side SPAM detectors look for certain red flags to determine whether or not messages are bulk mail. Based on your description of the situation, your wounds appear to be largely self-inflicted. You sent out a large number of emails from offshore IP-addresses, presumably using a domestic email address. Those are three very large red flags. If your messages were composed largely of graphic images rather than text, then you raised a fourth red flag. You may also be using an email provider that is popular among SPAMmers. That would be a fifth red flag.

The one thing that is a bit unusual in your case is that it seems that it was your recipients' email clients that flagged your messages as SPAM. If you had been in their address books, then maybe this would not have happened.

In the future, you may save yourself lots of grief downstream if you use your provider's webmail client.

 

[mikefly]

huh

this is a great explanation of why it happened - thanks - not sure what a webmail client is or how I'd use it.. but.. I wonder if there's anything to do to fix the current problem. As I say, I'm attached to my email address.

And yes - basically I set off all those flags - on the other hand, I have been sending similar mails out since I started travelling in 2000. (when internet cafes were scarcer). As a layman, not sure how I'd know to avoid those things.

FYI - using gmail.

Mike

 

[jive turkey]

I don't know your situation, so I can only share mine and maybe it will give you some ideas. I used to have pretty much all of my email rejected by ISP's, and even people who had me whitelisted would not get email. This was caused because I was using a mail server that a lot of other people were using (through the company that hosts my websites).

The solution that worked for me was to simply change my outgoing server to my internet provider instead of the company that hosts my email accounts. For example, I changed from xxx.dreamhost.com to xxx.cox.com. Never have lost a single email since.

I hope your solution is as simple as mine was (though it took me a LONG time to figure it out).