Managing ISP's who block forum emails to members?

[David Copeland]

We have had a forum going on 14 years with over 46,000 members and are hopeful xenForo may provide a better solution for our outgoing emails to members which are subject to some ISP's bouncing them back claiming "spam content: , or delivering our forum emails to the member's spam folder istead of their Inbox.

1) Are there any remedies or referrals to be shared of those who can deal with the ISP's and unblock our forum emails when using xenForo?

2) Are there any third party providers who can guarantee Inbox Delivery instead of regular delivery which may end up in a member's spam folder?

Note: Vertical Response company representatives emailed me stating they only guarantee delivery and not delivery to the Inbox, citing that their emails can end up in the member's spam folder.

 

[Liam W]

It's generally not the forum software that causes this.

xenForo doesn't have any 3rd party email system integration. It just sends email using the SMTP server defined, or using the standard mail command.

If you use SPF records, and SMTP authentication from your domain, then there's no reason mail should be marked as spam (I had my forum mail going to spam, did all that - it stopped going to spam.)

 

[HWS]

All software sending a lot of emails (as forums usually do) unfortunately are suspect to be catched in spam filters.

There is usually nothing you can do about it. Just make sure that your domain and email system is as secure as possible. Use Domain-Keys and very limited mail senders via SPF.

Most ISP's offer to whitelist your mail if you pay money to them. Large forums, social networks and professional marketing companies very often take advantage of such offers and won't be catched in general spam filters. However a single user always can opt your email to be spam. Even if you pay the ISP.

Even the AdBlock addon in Firefox and Chrome offers a program where you can pay to get your ads not filtered.

 

[tyteen4a03]

Mojang faces the same problem, and as a tech support volunteer I can only tell people to use an email service provider that doesn't suck (i.e Gmail).

Another potential way of going around this would be to redesign XenForo emails. When my site first started up, email verification emails went to the spam folder, and I guess it's because too many forums use the same format.

 

[David Copeland]

Mojang faces the same problem, and as a tech support volunteer I can only tell people to use an email service provider that doesn't suck (i.e Gmail).

What is Mojang?

 

[Liam W]

What is Mojang?

Pretty sure they're the makes of minecraft, however don't laugh if my memory is remembering wrong

 

[tyteen4a03]

What is Mojang?

Pretty sure they're the makes of minecraft, however don't laugh if my memory is remembering wrong

Makers of Minecraft, yes.

 

[Alpha1]

It only takes a little to get blacklisted as a spammer by email providers. Email providers share their blacklist amongst each other.
You can get blacklisted due to repeatedly sending email to inactive accounts, not responding to bounce messages, not following the CAN-SPAM ACT, not following the guidelines providers have set out, open relays, misconfiguration of email, etc.

XenForo sends out a mass of email. But it simply uses the PHP email function without any regard for the relevant laws and email guidelines. I hope that this will be improved upon in the future.

Meanwhile you can use this addon: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/bd-mails.2313/
You will need a costly subscription for it.

 

[Liam W]

It only takes a little to get blacklisted as a spammer by email providers. Email providers share their blacklist amongst each other.
You can get blacklisted due to repeatedly sending email to inactive accounts, not responding to bounce messages, not following the CAN-SPAM ACT, not following the guidelines providers have set out, open relays, misconfiguration of email, etc.

XenForo sends out a mass of email. But it simply uses the PHP email function without any regard for the relevant laws and email guidelines. I hope that this will be improved upon in the future.

Meanwhile you can use this addon: http://xenforo.com/community/resources/bd-mails.2313/
You will need a costly subscription for it.

Unless the admin does the sensible thing and sets up SMTP sending, which will vastly lower the chances of the email being sent to spam (as the sender is now authenticated).