Re: Email server health check?
I am wondering if anyone has advice on where there are any email health checks online. I used to use dnsstuff.com but they have since gone commercial. You have been given links and other suggestions for this that are sound, I would follow those suggestions. It's frustrating to have your users' emails land in Yahoo or Gmail spam folders, but not be able to understand why. DNS checks out fine as far as I can tell (tried out intodns.com and did my own DIGging) and all the rest as far as I am able to check. Checked the big name RBLs and got nothing there, either. At that point, you sound like you are doing ok. Where do people turn to try to get feedback on their outgoing emails? Even a spamassassin score checker would be nice, but alas (and specific issues with Yahoo/Gmail are of course nearly hopeless because those companies could care less about us little people). I have around 10 servers that have had issues with yahoo or hotmail or aol, ranging from ending up in the spam folder, to bounces, to eating the messages silently and not providing any data. I have been able to resolve all cases. Scott, thank you for the following information/experiences. I have done a little bit of that before, but nowhere near as much as you. It's good to hear someone who has made it work for them. Generally, I find Google the most objectionable as both a postmaster and a end user, because they don't provide ANY means of contact that I can tell -- they only provide some Google Groups that are dedicated to certain categories of troubles with their services, but from what I can tell, they just let the people in those groups/forums babble at each other and make wild guesses about various problems and they never chime in or actually help anyone themselves. Maybe they've done interesting things with their interfaces and usability and so forth, but their customer service approach (we don't have any) makes the likes of hotmail seem pleasant to deal with. Anyway, I'll take your cue and try to stay upbeat about it! :-) Thanks again! Aol: http://postmaster.aol.com/ Start there, you need to get into their feedback loop, this will alert you any time someone reports your emails as spam. They make it hard by only giving a message id, which I find can be tough to track down on a BCC/CC delivery with a lot of aol.com addresses in it. Apply for their whitelist, follow the feedback loop reports, and act on them, and you will be fine. Email their support system. While it will take 10-20 frustrating emails, that had they just read the first email in full, you will get unblocked. * Different providers like different things, some like DKIM, others SPF, and others something more proprietary, you just have to work with them, and you can get in their good graces. yahoo and hotmail http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/ http://postmaster.msn.com/ Their general policy is to send to the spam folder, and ask questions later. If they do not do that, and you have a new IP they have never seen, they may accept the message, not deliver it, and not notify anyone about it. It is all about IP history, if you have none, you are considered a bad guy. With both providers, you will need to email their support system. You will fill out a form, asking for attention. They will reply, asking you to fill out the same form again. They will reply, asking for clarification that you already provided in forms 1 and 2. Those will then be replied to asking for specifics that you answered in form 3. This will go on for a while. I generally see it takes 15 emails back and forth to get resolution. At some point, you will get a survey, to rate their performance on the issue. This is when you know they have unblocked you. By filling out the survey, at least with yahoo, that closes the ticket, so unless you have tested you are done, do not fill the survey out until you are sure you are deliverable. They may get you to a real human, who asks you to do telnet tests, and other things they should be doing on their end by looking at their logs. Just go through the motions, be polite, or they will drop the email communication and ignore. The email address of ticket-id-x...@silly-big-provider.example.com will expire and you get to start it all over. Many of the questions will ask how you manage your mailing lists, which most of the time for me, are not applicable. Others ask questions about a setup that would not be applicable to an outbound only smtp host for formmail type things. You sort of just have to logically fill in the blanks. The up front forms you are filling out are just a process to get you to a real human who will look into your issues. Be diligent, I have never walked away with emails that could not hit an inbox. I have not ran into this issue with
Re: Email server health check?
* email builder emailbuilde...@yahoo.com: Hi, I am wondering if anyone has advice on where there are any email health checks online. I used to use dnsstuff.com but they have since gone commercial. MXtoolbox -- Ralf Hildebrandt Geschäftsbereich IT | Abteilung Netzwerk Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Benjamin Franklin Hindenburgdamm 30 | D-12203 Berlin Tel. +49 30 450 570 155 | Fax: +49 30 450 570 962 ralf.hildebra...@charite.de | http://www.charite.de
Re: Email server health check?
* Ralf Hildebrandt ralf.hildebra...@charite.de: * email builder emailbuilde...@yahoo.com: Hi, I am wondering if anyone has advice on where there are any email health checks online. I used to use dnsstuff.com but they have since gone commercial. MXtoolbox http://www.mxtoolbox.com/eom/index.aspx -- Ralf Hildebrandt Geschäftsbereich IT | Abteilung Netzwerk Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Benjamin Franklin Hindenburgdamm 30 | D-12203 Berlin Tel. +49 30 450 570 155 | Fax: +49 30 450 570 962 ralf.hildebra...@charite.de | http://www.charite.de
Re: Email server health check?
On Aug 12, 2009, at 10:33 PM, email builder wrote: I am wondering if anyone has advice on where there are any email health checks online. I used to use dnsstuff.com but they have since gone commercial. You have been given links and other suggestions for this that are sound, I would follow those suggestions. It's frustrating to have your users' emails land in Yahoo or Gmail spam folders, but not be able to understand why. DNS checks out fine as far as I can tell (tried out intodns.com and did my own DIGging) and all the rest as far as I am able to check. Checked the big name RBLs and got nothing there, either. At that point, you sound like you are doing ok. Where do people turn to try to get feedback on their outgoing emails? Even a spamassassin score checker would be nice, but alas (and specific issues with Yahoo/Gmail are of course nearly hopeless because those companies could care less about us little people). I have around 10 servers that have had issues with yahoo or hotmail or aol, ranging from ending up in the spam folder, to bounces, to eating the messages silently and not providing any data. I have been able to resolve all cases. Aol: http://postmaster.aol.com/ Start there, you need to get into their feedback loop, this will alert you any time someone reports your emails as spam. They make it hard by only giving a message id, which I find can be tough to track down on a BCC/CC delivery with a lot of aol.com addresses in it. Apply for their whitelist, follow the feedback loop reports, and act on them, and you will be fine. Email their support system. While it will take 10-20 frustrating emails, that had they just read the first email in full, you will get unblocked. * Different providers like different things, some like DKIM, others SPF, and others something more proprietary, you just have to work with them, and you can get in their good graces. yahoo and hotmail http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/ http://postmaster.msn.com/ Their general policy is to send to the spam folder, and ask questions later. If they do not do that, and you have a new IP they have never seen, they may accept the message, not deliver it, and not notify anyone about it. It is all about IP history, if you have none, you are considered a bad guy. With both providers, you will need to email their support system. You will fill out a form, asking for attention. They will reply, asking you to fill out the same form again. They will reply, asking for clarification that you already provided in forms 1 and 2. Those will then be replied to asking for specifics that you answered in form 3. This will go on for a while. I generally see it takes 15 emails back and forth to get resolution. At some point, you will get a survey, to rate their performance on the issue. This is when you know they have unblocked you. By filling out the survey, at least with yahoo, that closes the ticket, so unless you have tested you are done, do not fill the survey out until you are sure you are deliverable. They may get you to a real human, who asks you to do telnet tests, and other things they should be doing on their end by looking at their logs. Just go through the motions, be polite, or they will drop the email communication and ignore. The email address of ticket-id-x...@silly-big-provider.example.com will expire and you get to start it all over. Many of the questions will ask how you manage your mailing lists, which most of the time for me, are not applicable. Others ask questions about a setup that would not be applicable to an outbound only smtp host for formmail type things. You sort of just have to logically fill in the blanks. The up front forms you are filling out are just a process to get you to a real human who will look into your issues. Be diligent, I have never walked away with emails that could not hit an inbox. I have not ran into this issue with google, though with a close personal friend in their gmail department, I would cheat on that issue. If you do not have that ability, I do not know how to deal with google, they seem rather vague about their systems. During all this, you will be curious to know why the blocks are happening, and how they determine them. Do not waste your time asking, they consider it proprietary, and part of their anti-spam strengths. Hope that helps. It is a pain, but it can be done. -- Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *
