Hi, I am just wondering why is my Welcome email to my clients being treated as spam (at least by Yahoo mail) even though it's not sent by a script (it's manually being sent from a webmail)? Anybody else experience this? I'm not sure what to change, if it's the Subject line or the Body content it self? The Welcome email just contains the client's username, password, cpanel info, etc. If anyone would be kind, I would appreciate if they can share their own Welcome email format that doesn't get caught as spam. Thanks.

I am not nessecarily sure if it's the content itself... Does this always happen, or just the one client? Yahoo! has some pretty strong spam filters in there system (as well as Hotmail and other free email clients!)

It does happen always, I've tried changing the content itself a bit and also the subject and it still goes to Bulk. I am sure it's not the "From:" email address that looks "spamish" because when I send normal email it doesn't go to Bulk, so it's probably the content or the subject.

hmm, what is in the content of the email? Images and things? Or just text?

Just plain text.

Hi, I am just wondering why is my Welcome email to my clients being treated as spam (at least by Yahoo mail) even though it's not sent by a script (it's manually being sent from a webmail)? Anybody else experience this? I'm not sure what to change, if it's the Subject line or the Body content it self? The Welcome email just contains the client's username, password, cpanel info, etc. If anyone would be kind, I would appreciate if they can share their own Welcome email format that doesn't get caught as spam. Thanks.
Check SPF records if possible. SPF if setup properly, yahoo will not treat your emails as spam.

Alright, I think I found the reason why. After several test emails, I therefor conclude that if you include an IP address based url in your email message (ex: http://123.456.789.123/~username) Yahoo will treat it as spam. Now if you'd ask why would I have such in my Welcome email - it's the clients temporary URL while their domain propagates. Anyways I hope this helps anyone. Thanks.

mbr - thanks for that. I actually tested it on Yahoo with an IP address URL but it went right to my inbox.

Do you have an SPF record? We use one so I am wondering if that is what "changes" it?

We had the same problem, though i dont think this was a problem of us bu the sick side of the yahoo. We have daily hundreds of e-mail traffic from the domain name due to invoices, ticket notifications.. etc and yahoo usually forwards them to the bulk, who knows maybe yahoo forwards all hosting services e-mails to the bulk folder. Just do what we are doing, put a note at signup step to not use any yahoo e-mail and require secondary/backup e-mail also release a yahoo news for current customers.

@corey - Nope I do not have an SPF record. About your test, I think it depends on the content of your message, mine had some 20 lines of text and multiple instances of IP address URL. An example would contain something like:


Temporary URL:
- http://123.456.789.123/~username

Control Panel Information:
- http://example.com/cpanel (http://123.456.789.123/cpanel)

Webmail Information:
- http://example.com/webmail (http://123.456.789.123/webmail)

FTP Information:
- 123.456.789.123

etc...


I removed all those IP URL's and it went it okay. Though it may not be always the case. I tested it (with the IP URLs) on a brand new email yahoo address and it went straight to inbox. But on "older" accounts it goes to Bulk. So far without the IP's it's goes okay.

You might want to try this:

Suppose your web hosting company's domain name is www.webhosting.com (http://www.webhosting.com). A new client signs up who wants to host www.mydomain.com (http://www.mydomain.com) at your company.

When you set him up in your control panel, create a subdomain of your company's domain name to be used as the temporary access URL (instead of listing the IP address in the email), and list it as a domain name alias for his new site.

I use the domain name of the customer's site as the subdomain. So, in this example, you would enter "mydomain.webhosting.com" as the domain name alias for the new customer's site.

Then your welcome email can say:
Your new web hosting account is set up. You will soon be able to access your website at: http://www.mydomain.com. Until the new domain name propagation reaches all worldwide DNS servers, you will be able to access your website at : http://mydomain.webhosting.com. This URL will remain active should you ever need to access your web site in the future, for example, if you forget to renew your domain name.
I have also used the site number as the subdomain such as "site13.webhosting.com" as a temporary URL. As long as your domain name remains renewed, he will always have an alternative URL to reach his site, even if he forgets to renew his domain name.

Darrell

Nope I do not have an SPF record.


Why the heck not?? There will be a lot of ISPs that won't deliver your email without one.

--Tina

FWIW, I've run into this exact problem, and it wasn't the temporary URL so much as it was the fact the message was sent from webmail -- Squirrel Mail specifically.

The only way around it was to re-send from a "real" mail program (Outlook equivalent).

This wasn't for a welcome e-mail, it was for some support work I was doing one-on-one with a client. There was nothing "spammish" about it, but it kept mis-filing into the Spam/Junk folder in both Gmail and Yahoo. It was fine when I sent it from a normal e-mail program though!

:D Bailey

Hi, I am just wondering why is my Welcome email to my clients being treated as spam (at least by Yahoo mail) even though it's not sent by a script (it's manually being sent from a webmail)? Anybody else experience this? I'm not sure what to change, if it's the Subject line or the Body content it self? The Welcome email just contains the client's username, password, cpanel info, etc. If anyone would be kind, I would appreciate if they can share their own Welcome email format that doesn't get caught as spam. Thanks.

I have the same problem (but I am using Outlook Express to send emails). I did contact Yahoo and they don`t seem to care.

I would consider an SPF record and see if that fixes your problem. I put twelve temp URLs and it seemed to work.

If you are on *NIX, check out Sender Policy Framework (http://www.openspf.org/) and if you are on Windows, check out Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard (http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/)

Alright I think I will do that. Thanks for the info.