xtra.co.nz junk mail

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networkn

Networkn
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#72134 21-Nov-2010 16:12

Hi There!

We have had a problem on and off for about 12 months with our emails to xtra.co.nz addresses going into their spam filter.
We can't work out why, we aen't on any blacklists we can find, and have changed ip's a few times over that period of time, so I don't think it's IP specific. Our reverse dns matches as does our smtp servers banner.

How can I determine the cause so I can resolve it?

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Networkn
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#407335 21-Nov-2010 17:02

We have our own email server and internet domain name in case that wasn't clear :)

BlakJak

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#407358 21-Nov-2010 18:18

This is not a new thing.

http://viastrada.co.nz/news/2008/xtra-spam-filter-problems

http://list.waikato.ac.nz/pipermail/nznog/2007-October/013527.html

The following has some useful advice

http://list.waikato.ac.nz/pipermail/nznog/2010-February/016163.html

But then we go back to a common theme

http://list.waikato.ac.nz/pipermail/nznog/2010-February/016164.html

The stock answer from most circles is 'don't use Xtra'.

Unfortunately noone here is likely to be able to directly help you without a whole bunch more data; the reasons messages get flagged as spam are many, varied, and generally cumulative. The first question I would ask you, is 'Have any of your Xtra.co.nz recipients (or for that matter. Yahoo.* as it's all the same now) ever clicked 'report as spam' on one of your emails?'

What's that? You don't know? Welcome to the problem.

Follow the 'useful advice' above. Consider using your ISP's SMTP server as a smart relay instead of doing direct MX. Ensure you have a matching forward/reverse DNS pair for your mail server. Publish an accurate SPF record. And then tell your recipients to moan at their ISP (which is the only way, ultimately, to get anything done) - or to change ISP to one that doesn't generate false positives...

No signature to see here, move along...

richms

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#407416 21-Nov-2010 20:53

yeah, there is nothing done when an xtra/yahoo (l)user clicks spam on an email that they signed up to receive other than the spam filter learning it globally.

If you wanted to screw up a competitor, get a yahoo address (lots of them) sign up for all the mailing lists you can from them, and then report spam on them all.

Nothing generated to the sender of the email at all, either to identify the complainer to close their account or bill them for falsely reporting spam, just makes the mails start to drop into peoples spam folders.

xtra's staff dont give a toss about it, cite privacy reasons or lie that they cant see who reported mails as spam, refuse to educate their customers about the difference between spam and commercial emails that they signed up for or are contractually obliged to receive.

Friend doesnt even bother to email back to xtra addresses anymore since so few ever get it and respond. Sucks if you are using an xtra address and looking for a job.

Richard rich.ms

maaark

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#407634 22-Nov-2010 13:15

Hi
First up - Get the Technical Mail Administrator to read all of the topics in BASICS on the Yahoo postmaster site http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/

Test your network is secure - test for open relay on your network/mail server.
Note changing your IP address without resolving the root cause will contribute to the issue as the new IP address will not have a reputation as a sender, and if you don't address the cause of the problem, it will degrade the new sending ip address's reputation.

Check the full headers from a test email (if you don't have an @xtra email account, create a @yahoo.co.nz one), if it is successfully delivered to the inbox, it may be that individual customers have reported messages sent from your ip address as Spam.
Check your IP addresss on Spamhaus.org
Check your SMTP logs on your mail server and refer back to the Yahoo postmaster site for any bounce codes like 421 4.7.0

Do your emails comply with Yahoo requirements for senders?
Read the recommendations in the Postmaster BASICS pages.
If you have made changes to your set up to improve your delivery set up, Yahoo will require the technical Mail administrator to complete the relevant online form (don't send the form without doing the checks and tests first as the issues arent going to be resolved) http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/forms_index.html (The forms are specific to the main type of email distribution you perform are e.g. the bulk form for professional bulk emailers http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/bulkv2.html?pir=_Q7YgIRibUm6jX2qWqRiAzfi96516Mf7xjCkvsFtL8mjg9ruz6JUx99O7aPnXDIZB3gCe1H_1I032w2PukPti0enlmhRjABdsOFSjB3E73qURS42G5sVy0QUr__qjSTlg7S63h_nuf2WUVIezkjlvh4-

Providing as much supporting information (to show the issue, actions done to address issues) will help Yahoo in their evaluation - however they are not going to instruct you on how to improve your set up and to comply with their requirements, they will only make assessment on what information you provide and the emails they see coming through their systems from the nominated IP addresses

Who do you send emails to? User generated emails (answering a question) are different to bulk mailing (sales, special offers, newsletters) and transactional emails (automated responses).
Perform regular checks to your customer distribution lists that the customers still wish to receive offers, newsletters etc. Unfortunately if it is easier to report a sender as spam than it is to unsubscribe from a marketing list, this will affect the ability to deliver messages
if your customers are bulk mailed specials and offers - think seriously about using a specialist direct email company that manages the process for bulk mailing in accordance to mail standards like smartmail.co.nz or permission.co.nz

networkn

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#407637 22-Nov-2010 13:18

We do not nor have we ever sent out bulk mailings, these are new emails and replies.

I am sure our site is secure and is NOT a open relay nor responsible for sending mail unsolicited.

maaark

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#407642 22-Nov-2010 13:26

You don't have to convince me.
I am just highlighting that if you want to successfully address this issue, read the BASICS, get your Technical Mail administrator to do to tests, check the SMTP logs and check your set up and provide the appropriate information via the yahoo postmaster online request site.

networkn

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#407647 22-Nov-2010 13:30

The form you are suggesting I fill out is related to bulk sending which I don't do, would this still apply?

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BlakJak

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#407658 22-Nov-2010 13:48

Welcome to the mayhem that is dealing with Xtra :)

Sadly the best advice is just to blindly do whatever they tell you to do and hope that one of the measures you're taking will get you over the hurdle. This means following the BASICS as described above for starters.

The worst of dealing with any organisation as large as Yahoo is that you cease to have any (relative) value unless you yourself are massive.

So they don't care to set things up such that the small player is taken care of directly. You need to conform to their expectations and as from their perspective it's your loss (not theirs) if you don't, that's almost as much care as they think they need to take.

For my own (personal, non commercial) mail server all I can do is take some of the most straightforward measures which are deemed reasonable, and hope for the best. And point out to anyone who'll listen that Yahoo don't care about the little guy, so shouting 'but it's not spam!' is unlikely to be heard unless you succeed in getting a goodly number of folks to say the same thing.

And Yahoo and Xtra are interchangable in all of the above since Xtra outsourced it's email arrangements to Yahoo several years ago.

BJ.

No signature to see here, move along...

richms

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#407664 22-Nov-2010 13:56

Long link is breaking page formatting, I cant read lots of it because it;s flowing out the side.

Richard rich.ms

BlakJak

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#407677 22-Nov-2010 14:10

I shrunk it. http://ow.ly/3dleG

No signature to see here, move along...

richms

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#407685 22-Nov-2010 14:17

Yeah, someone needs to edit maarks post to not have the long one

otherwise it makes the posts too wide to fit

Richard rich.ms

Kraven

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#407744 22-Nov-2010 15:37

richms: Nothing generated to the sender of the email at all, either to identify the complainer to close their account or bill them for falsely reporting spam, just makes the mails start to drop into peoples spam folders.

Actually you can get a report when a Yahoo user reports an email you have sent as Spam. It's called the "Complaint Feedback Loop", the details are here:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/feedback/

Basically they'll send you a report which tells you who the user was, so you can remove them from your mailing lists, etc. From memory, it took a while after I signed up (maybe a couple of months) before I started getting the reports.

richms

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#407764 22-Nov-2010 16:12

Kraven:
richms: Nothing generated to the sender of the email at all, either to identify the complainer to close their account or bill them for falsely reporting spam, just makes the mails start to drop into peoples spam folders.

Actually you can get a report when a Yahoo user reports an email you have sent as Spam. It's called the "Complaint Feedback Loop", the details are here:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/feedback/

Basically they'll send you a report which tells you who the user was, so you can remove them from your mailing lists, etc. From memory, it took a while after I signed up (maybe a couple of months) before I started getting the reports.

Unavailable unless you do some propriatry yahoo stuff to your outgoing emails when I looked into it.

I am not letting yahoo dictate how email works for the rest of the internet by partaking in their "domainkeys" stuff, if they want to be difficult with respect to emails, then screw em.

Richard rich.ms

Kraven

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#407780 22-Nov-2010 16:39

Fair enough - in our situation our mailing list was made up of 40-45% Xtra/Yahoo email addresses so it made sense to put the effort in, implement domainkeys, etc, to have the problem resolved.

Ragnor

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#407955 23-Nov-2010 01:48

richms:

Unavailable unless you do some propriatry yahoo stuff to your outgoing emails when I looked into it.

I am not letting yahoo dictate how email works for the rest of the internet by partaking in their "domainkeys" stuff, if they want to be difficult with respect to emails, then screw em.

Domainkeys/DKIM and SenderID are open standards and should be setup on all legitimate email servers.

It's the best way to show straight off the bat to the receiving server that your server is legit.

Not even very hard to setup tbh.

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