Throttling outgoing emails to certain domains with Postfix

http://blog.al-shami.net/2009/03/throttling-outgoing-emails-to-certain-domains-with-postfix/

check open relay mail server

http://www.checkor.com/

testing open ports

http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/

how to install opendkim

http://stevejenkins.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-get-dkim-domainkeys-identified-mail-working-on-centos-5-5-and-postfix-using-opendkim/comment-page-2/#comment-15375

feed back loop

If you run a mail server, and do any kind of bulk emails, you need to sign up with the feedback loops to ensure you keep your mail list clean, and keep your IP reputation in good standing.  I have put together a complete list of all known feedback loops.  I also include some background information on each Feedback Loop.  I know this might seem like a pain in the ASS, but its worth it.

Everytime I setup a new website that will be blasting to their mail list, I first create an abuse email address with their domain, I then alias this address to my email.  Then I go through all the feedback loops below and get them signed up.  I have found that if you want your clients to keep their lists clean you will have to be the one who removes the bounces and feedback loop notifications.  If you leave it in their hands it won't happen. They will put it off, or ignore it, until finally they have ruined the reputation of their mail server's IP.  Since my success is based on their success which drives referrals and good clients, its important to keep their IP reputation clean.

Separate from the Feedback Loops I highly recommend every checkout Return Path's SenderScore.org.  This will give you a quick overview of how your mail server is doing.

I wish that ReturnPath would setup some kind of universal FBL form.  But instead you have to get through every website to get the form setup.  The worst part is if you ever move to a new IP with your mail server you will need to shutdown all the old FBL requests, and then reapply with the new IP.  I just recently moved my server to a new Datacenter.  Its going to take me at least a few days to get all the FBL stuff updated. List of Feedback Loops.

Yahoo Feedback Loop

Yahoo requires that you first have a yahoo account, which will be tied to all FBL entries you make.  Their interface is nice and simple, but in my opinion Return Path's Form is the simplest.
Yahoo Feedback Loop Request Form

AOL Feedback Loop

American Online similar to yahoo does not use the standard Return Path Form.  They require you fill out their custom form, and they have separate forms for managing your feedback loop.
AOL explanation of the feedback Loop ( FBL ) application process
AOL new Feedback Loop Form
AOL check your existing FBL configuration
AOL Subtract IPs, or Delete FBL

MSN / Hotmail Feedback Loop

MSN uses their own custom form, and just like everything else Microsoft gets their hands on, they have renamed it Junk Mail Reporting Partner Program.
MSN / Hotmail Feedback Loop Request Form

Comcast Feedback Loop

Comcast's uses the standard return path Feedback Loop Request Form.  However you should be aware that comcast requires a minimum of a Senderscore of 60 before they will approve you for the FBL.
Comcast Feedback Loop Request Form

Cox Feedback Loop

Cox uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form.
Cox Feedback Loop Request Form

Tucows Feedback Loop

Tucows uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form
Tucows Feedback Loop Request Form

Rackspace Feedback Loop

Rackspace uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form
RackSpace Feedback Loop Request Form

Excite / Bluetie Feedback Loop

Excite uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form
Excite / BlueTie Feedback Loop Request Form

United Online / NetZero / Juno Feedback Loop

They use their own custom form for handling FBL
United Online / NetZero / Juno Feedback Loop Request Form

Road Runner Feedback Loop

Road Runner uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form.
Road Runner Feedback Loop Request Form

USA.net Feedback Loop

USA.net uses the standard Return Path Feedback Loop Request Form.
USA.net Feedback Loop Request Form

Earthlink, Excite, Outblaze Feedback Loop

You must email in your request to
Earthlink: fblrequest@abuse.earthlink.net
Excite: emailadmin@cs.excite.com
Outblaze: postmaster@outblaze.com
They will need the following information
  • IP addresses that you want to receive feedback loop emails for
  • The domain you want to subscribe
  • Let them know if you want to use the abuse or postmaster email on the domain
  • Your network's contact information: name, contact e-mail and phone
  • The e-mail address to which the FBL will be sent
  • Mail Server Email volume on a daily/weekly/monthly schedule
  • Type of content
  • Optin form URL
  • Does your mail list use a double opt in or single opt in sign up process

http://blog.whitesites.com/ISP-Feedback-Loop-list__634207841076562500_blog.htm

getting mail into your inbox

After building a CRM system for a company, we noticed that all of our marketing emails were hitting the Gmail's Spam folder.  A little Trial and Error revealed some interesting facts about how Google's Spam Filter works.

The problem we were having was our Server based CRM system that allows our Account Manager to quickly market our products to potential customers, was getting filtered by google.  All Messages were going directly to the spam folder.  However when the Account Manager copy pasted the same message into Thunderbird and manually sent it, the message went to Gmail's Inbox.  This ruled out the possibility of the IP Address being an issue since both systems would send email from the same IP.  This lead me to believe that either the messages were being formatted differently, or Gmail was reading the Delivery Headers and accepting messages that originated from a Residential Comcast IP, rather than messages that originated directly off the mail server ( Web Mail, or Server ).

Both messages looked exactly the same.  Both had 4 hyperlinks back to our website, same text, ect.  However at the bottom of our messages I setup a signature that included the company logo.  Turns out that when this logo is being referenced from the web server <img src="http://mywebsite.com/mylogo.jpg"> Gmail would always push the message to the Spam Folder.  However when the logo was embedded into the email <img src="cid:mylogo">  with a base64 block storing the actual image data, the email would make it into the Inbox.   I guess for security and privacy reasons, Google feels you should be penalized for Server Referenced images in your emails. 

So in the future if your emails keep hitting the Gmail Spam folder, try to embed your images into the email rather than reference them from your web server.

get mails to your yahoo inbox

Yahoo runs one of the strictest Anti Spam setups of all the Free mailServers. If you send any kind of bulk emails then you likely haven't had much success getting into the inbox of yahoo.  Your Emails are either bounced with a deferred message, or they end up in the spam folder.  After switching IPs of mymail server I had the opportunity to validate many of my theories on how Yahoo's AntiSpam technology works.

If you have found yourself on this page you likely have filled out all Yahoo's stupid forms, and had them give you the same generic denied response each time.  In the mean time you continue to get bounce messages like these.  Reason: Remote host said: 421 4.7.0 TS01 Messages from 69.80.230.7 temporarily deferred due to user complaints - 4.16.55.1.

Respecting Yahoo and their network

First before we start this discussion, understand a few things.  Yahoo is in the business to make money.  The more spam yahoo lets in, the more storage they need, and the more servers they need to handle all the inbound connections.  The decision to enforce strict policies regarding spam has more to do with cutting costs, than it does with providing an excellent server for its users.  If you send a nasty email to yahoo complaining, its likely to be received by some under paid customer support rep, who deals with hundreds of these emails every day, yet they have no power to help you.  Their job is to simply take the heat, so that those in upper management can live in their fantasy land that they are not doing anything wrong.An Overview of YahooFirst before you get mad and put a fist through your LCD screen, its important to understand the bigger picture.  Yahoo has more members than any other Free Email Service provider.  With over 200 million world wide.  This also means they are the biggest target for spammers.  Yahoo sees more spam than any other provider.  This is for two reasons, 1. The majority of any maillist will consist of yahoo addresses.  2. Many people use their Yahoo email address for spam.  Meaning if they have to sign up for something, but are reluctant to give their real email address, they will often use a 2nd yahoo email address.  As a result the spam rate on these secondary email addresses is very high.

How Yahoo's Antispam technology works

Yahoo uses a number of technologies to block spam.  These include sending mail server IP reputation within the Yahoo system, various RBLs ( real time black lists ), user feedback ( people clicking the spam button ), DNS settings ( DomainKeys, DKIM, SPF, RDNS ( reverse DNS ), Senderscore ( found at senderscore.org ).  All these technologies focus on the hardware side.  But they also look at how the email is formatted, and what keywords are in it.  For intance if you have the word "Viagra" in your email this could potentially raise a red flag.  If you are using base64 encoding to mask your email text ( intentially or not ) this will also count against you.  If you are sending emails without alternate HTML / Text versions, this can hurt too.  If you are sending emails without a Named alias for the from Email, this also hurts.

How to get into the Yahoo Inbox with your bulk emails

When I say bulk emails this does not mean spam.  If you are trying to send spam these techniques can help, but ultimately your mail server's bad repuration will get you blocked.  When I say bulk email I am talking about any email message that is the same being send to mutiple  ( 100s, 1000s ) recipients.  Here I will list out all the things I have found that help and hurt your emails from being delivered to the yahoo inbox.

Things that help get into yahoo Inbox

  • Mail server uses DomainKeys
  • Mal server uses DKIM
  • Domain has proper SPF Text Record
  • IP has Reverse DNS pointing to the hostname of the mail server
  • From Email Address includes an Named Alias
  • Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ( or any human readable encoding )
  • Mail Server IP has a SenderScore over 60
  • Joining the Feedback Loop and using its feedback to keep your maillist clean

Things that prevent getting into yahoo Inbox

  • Mail server uses no Key technologies ( DomainKeys, DKIM )
  • No Reverse DNS on IP
  • Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 ( or any non readable encoding )
  • No SenderScore or a senderscore under 60
  • Sending high volumes of email from a mail server that typically does low volume daily
  • Sending emails that are 100% identical. ( add personalized header and footers to make them unique )
  • Mail Server IP listed on any RBL ( real time black list )

How to get Whitelisted by Yahoo

Yahoo doesn't have a whitelist, they determine how to handle your email based on your Mail Server's reputation.  But if you are having trouble with yahoo, and are getting the typical 4xx bounces ( deferred ), or messages are getting through but they are not making it into the Inbox, then you need to fill out a form.

Yahoo has a new bulk sender form, that allows you to tell yahoo what kind of mail server setup you have, so that they can route your emails to the appropriate folder. Fill out the Yahoo Bulk Sender Form here
Just be sure you are only sending emails to a double opt in list.  They are very strict about this.  They will check their system to see the reputation of your IP before approving you. Be honest with them.  One thing I have noticed with these forms is if you use the same IP for sending all types of mail, they will not prioritize your emails.  If you want prioritized sending you will need to setup a different ip and or hostname for different types of mail.  Newsletters and Marketing emails should not be send from the same mail server as your notifications / corporate emails.  This is how yahoo wants everyone to setup their mail servers.  Honestly I think they are asking for too much.

Check your open rates.

This one is very important, and I am still amazed how many companies don't check open rates.  They either don't have any kind of tracking built into their emails, or they use a third party that doesn't provide them with this information.  If you can get between 15% and 20% open rate tracking you are doing good.  Because many email system will disable your beacon images this is about as good as you can expect.  If you are using a third party to do a blast for you, ask them to reference an image off your server.  Then after they do the blast check to see what kind of hits this image received.  Only count the unique IPs.  This should give you a figure that is close to the number of emails that were opened.

A couple years ago my client ( a promoter ) paid another promoter to do a blast out to his list.  The other promoter claimed he had a maillist of 14,000.  But what he didn't know was the event flier that was called from our server had tracking built in to it.  So when he blasted out to his list we were able to see how many people really opened it.  The number was weak, only 300 could be confirmed as being opened.  We never did any work with this promoter again.  A maillist of 1 million subscribers isn't worth crap if you don't have a Mail server that is able to delivery your marketing to their inbox.  This is one of the problems with third party bulk systems like Constant Contact.  They use a shared block of IPs for all mail, and since they can't support the advanced technologies ( domainkeys, DKIM, RDNS ),  emails from them rarely make it into the inbox.  These systems are also constantly abused by spammers. 

Limiting Emails per Hour helps increase delivery in Yahoo

One thing I have noticed is yahoo does not like it when you try to bomb their servers with 20 SMTP threads at once.  If you want to make it into yahoo's mail servers its important the emails are delivered like they are corporate or notifications.  This means you don't want yahoo to see 50 emails that all look the same delivered with 5 minutes.  Generally yahoo should only see 2 or 3 emails from your server each minute.  Yahoo's system looks for patterns. As long as the emails you are sending do not look like bulk email yahoo will not treat it like so.  If you are able to setup your mail server to space out the delivery to yahoo this could increase your inbox delivery rates.  When yahoo starts to defer emails they typically remove the block witin 48 hours or sooner.  Its important to understand that this block is not manually added or removed.  The block is based on activity over a 48 hour time span ( theoretically ).  After 48 hours the emails that caused you to cross the line will fall off the back of the stack and you will once again be able to get into yahoo.

Staying within your normal daily traffic

If you run a community website.  Typically you might have 100s if not 1000s of notifications emails going out on any given day.  Yahoo knows this.  If on an average day lets say your mail server sends 500 emails, and then you blast to 10,000 people, Yahoo will know that something is different.  The trick is to send out a number of emails that is just barely above what you normally send.  This should keep your mail server under the radar.  This might mean letting your emails trickle out over a week, instead of blasting 10,000 within 10 minutes.

Send to your members first

Typically when doing an email blast they would go out ascending or decending, by database ID or date they joined the maillist.  But if you are like me, you have a separate members list, and maillist.  Members are active on your site, while the maillist are mostly just people who wanted to see some pictures.  To ensure the best outcome, send emails to your members first, then to your mailist ( newest subscribers first ).  This way if you get spam complaints it won't stop emails from reaching your active members.

Hardware matters with bulk email and yahoo

You can't buy high open rates.  You have to earn them.  If you are serious about running a legit mail server that will send bulk emails. I recommend you either buy a server and colocate it, or get a dedicated server with a hosting company that is willing to as many IPs as you need, and will not force you to use a Shared Mail Relay.  Those of you with godaddy dedicated servers will never enjoy high open rates because they block your outgoing port 25, and force you to go through their relay ( which has a bad reputation )

If you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

Brain has the power to achieve

Human brain is a biological supercomputer. It is an Extreme machine
that can create extreme machines we are yet to imagine. It is designed
to work in GDSM mode.

Once you learn how to use your biological supercomputer—your brain—in
the GDSM mode, there is no limit to what you can do.

What is this GDSM mode?

GDSM mode means Goal Driven Success Machine mode. Our brain gets into
action whenever we have serious goals or emotionalized thoughts. You
think repeatedly about something you really want. You imagine yourself
enjoying the benefits of the thing you want. This makes you emotional.

A repeated and emotionalized thought becomes a dominant thought. Your
brain takes over this dominant or emotionalized thought as a goal and
drives you to think, behave and act in a manner that takes you to your
goal—AUTOMATICALLY!

This is a simple explanation of how your brain can make ANY of your
dreams, or fears, come true.

Here's a very common example of this mode:

You come to know about the wonderful story of a movie from your
friends or newspaper. You get interested. You imagine yourself
enjoying that movie. You repeat this imagination. Mental REPETITION
of enjoying that movie INCREASES your desire to see that movie; your
brain generates many ideas necessary to go for it— put off scheduled
business activities or bunk classes or fool parents or remove any
obstacles, till you watch the movie and enjoy it…you're hooked.

You will stop only when you see that movie!

Many such things might have happened in your life! Recall them and
identify the mechanism that worked behind such instances. Do this.
You'll discover a never failing formula to achieve anything.

The same mechanism works behind all your dreams coming true--winning
in baseball or passing exam with top grades or getting the job you
love or achieving your business goals.

Also the same mechanism works equally well in this negative example—a
person committing suicide.

Yes, for that person it is an important goal though dangerous! He or
she thinks that suicide is the easiest solution to get rid of many
troubles in life. Which is not correct, as there are many easier and
happier ways to get out of any kind of trouble.

Human brain does not think or worry about the end result, even if the
goal is to take one's own life! It simply helps the owner TO SUCCEED
in whatever he or she is SERIOUSLY imagining to achieve. Because your
brain is designed by nature to work as, "Goal Driven Success Machine!"

So BE CAREFUL of what you repeatedly think or imagine, as your brain
is designed to make your dominant thoughts and feelings come true, by
working in GDSM mode!

Also remember, your brain doesn't worry whether your dominant thoughts
or feelings lead you to loss or profit. It just AUTOMATICALLY executes
your dominant thought. And helps you get the corresponding result—it
may be failure or success!

This is the PLAIN TRUTH about your brain!

So, IF YOU THINK learning a particular subject is difficult, your
brain can make that a reality—by reducing the level of brain activity
during the processes of concentration, registration, remembering and
recalling—whenever you deal with the subject you imagine as difficult.
When these processes do not take place normally you learn little or
nothing.

If you think your job is unsatisfactory, then your brain will make it
a reality by focusing on everything that is bad about your job.

All your present difficulties, poor performance in studies, career or
business and all unwanted conditions in your life are the result of
using your brain in GDSM mode--negatively.

But the good news is, you can get rid of all those unwanted
conditions--by using your brain in GDSM mode--positively!

all possible technologies one could learn

  .NET
  Active Directory
  AJAX
  Amazon Web Services
  Apache (to add)
  Apache Solr (to add)
  Apple Safari
  AS400 & iSeries
  ASP
  Asterisk PBX
  AutoHotkey
  Azure
  Balsamiq
  Blog Install
  BMC Remedy
  Boonex Dolphin
  Business Catalyst
  C Programming
  C# Programming
  C++ Programming
  CakePHP
  Chordiant
  Chrome OS
  Cisco
  Cloud Computing
  CMS
  COBOL
  Cocoa
  Codeigniter
  Cold Fusion
  Computer Security
  CRE Loaded
  CubeCart
  CUDA
  Delphi
  Django
  DNS
  DotNetNuke
  Drupal
  Dynamics AX
  eCommerce
  eLearning
  Electronic Forms
  Embedded Software
  Erlang
  Expression Engine
  Facebook
  FileMaker
  Firefox
  Fortran
  Forum Software
  FreelancerAPI
  Game Design
  Google Analytics
  Google App Engine
  Google Buzz
  Google Chrome
  Google Earth
  Google Go
  Google Wave
  GPGPU
  HP Openview
  HTML
  HTML5
  IBM Tivoli
  IIS
  Interspire
  J2EE
  Java
  JavaFX
  Javascript
  Joomla
  jQuery / Prototype
  JSP
  Kinect
  LabVIEW
  Link Building
  Linux
  Lotus Notes
  Mac OS
  Magento
  Metatrader
  Microsoft
  Microsoft Access
  Microsoft Exchange
  Microsoft Expression
  MMORPG
  MODx
  MySpace
  MySQL (to add)
  Nginx (to add)
  NoSQL Couch & Mongo
  Objective C
  Oracle
  OSCommerce
  Parallels Automation
  Parallels Desktop
  Paypal API
  Pentaho
  Perl
  Photoshop Coding
  PHP
  PICK Multivalue DB
  Plesk
  Prestashop
  Prolog
  Protoshare
  Python
  REALbasic
  Rocket Engine
  Ruby & Ruby on Rails
  SAP
  Script Install
  Sencha / YahooUI
  SEO
  Sharepoint
  Shell Script (to add)
  Shopping Carts
  Silverlight
  Smarty PHP
  Social Engine
  Social Networking
  Software Architecture
  Software Testing
  Solaris
  SQL
  Symfony PHP
  System Admin
  TaoBao API
  TestStand
  Twitter
  UML Design
  Unity 3D
  UNIX
  Usability Testing
  User Interface / IA
  vBulletin
  Virtual Worlds
  Virtuemart
  Virtuozzo
  Visual Basic
  Visual Foxpro
  VoIP
  Volusion
  vTiger
  Web Scraping
  Web Security
  Website Testing
  Windows Desktop
  Windows Server
  Wordpress
  XML
  XSLT
  Yii
  YouTube
  Zen Cart
  Zend

Mobile Phones & Computing

* Amazon Kindle
Android
Android Honeycomb
Appcelerator Titanium
* Blackberry
Geolocation
iPad
iPhone
* J2ME
Mobile Phone
Nokia
Palm
* Samsung
Symbian
Windows CE
Windows Mobile

Other Articles

Enter your email address: