Email IP Problems

[mustard20]

Hello,

I have been having problems with my email set up on my websites. I want to see if I am the only one and if anyone has a solution?

I send lots of emails but I do not send spam. I just do a lot of business and communicating. I am finding that a lot of other ISP have now blocked me sending any email to them. I cant even email myself to my AOL email address.

I am also finding many people never get emails that I send and I do not get any kind of message that there was a problem.

I emailed some important information to my attorney this week and he never got the email and I never knew there was a problem. It is like it is floating around out in space somewhere.

Tonight I set up a new GMAIL address to run a test. I emailed my new GMAIL account from my website email account and now four hours later still no email has arrived in my GMAIL account. I then sent my GMAIL account an email from my AOL account and in less then ten seconds it was there.

What am I doing wrong or is this a normal problem? I really need to know that emails I send get to where they are suppose to get. It would also blow to have to use other ISP's for email instead of branded ones.

Any advice or help would be appreciated.

[Vasili]

Re: Email problems

Not a common problem, but one that is difficult to unsnarl due to the differences in Internet Provider methods, policies, and technologies: your IP has been put on a block list for one reason or another, and you must make the efforts to unblock it. To make matters worse, there are more than one list you need to clear, and only you can get the ball rolling.

All of these similar IP email problems stem from the efforts of AOL, Gmail, and Yahoo to appear 'protective' of their customer and their proprietary Communities from the onslaught of Spam, but in truth, they needed to create a way to develop revenue to replace the drop in fees they were able to charge customers opting to keep within the communities (keep their email addresses). It also made sense to somehow integrate these new "inbox" fees with whatever adveretising they were allowing and charging for to market to the Communities directly (i.e.: AOL's Keywords will present a list of preferred Vendors).
To accomplish this overall "screening" they required most anyone sending email from a domain (example: John@BigDogs.com which is traditionally a business or special interest, and not from another "Community" like John@juno.com) to "WhiteList" themselves through GoodMail.com .... who only added the email address as "approved" if petitioned properly and who then collect anywhere from $0.0025 to 0.025 per email processed to any valid address within those Communities. Thus, Goodmail collected "email fees" for every email User within those Communities, vainly transparent, from charging the Vendors rather than the Users as an 'added fee.'

Remember, not only do you need to investigate the issue about access to Communities, but also with your own connection Provider (Comcast, Bright House, Warner, etc.), and they are also typically uncooperative or simply ignorant on how to accept responsibility or to resolve it for you to satisfaction.

Typically, VodaHost clients will not experience this phenomenon of being 'blocked' unless:
1) Their domain is clearly commercial sounding, and they send more than 100 emails per week to predominently the 3 Communities listed;
2) The bounceback rate for emails sent on those domains is greater than 10% in any given 45 day period;
3) The volume of emails reaches near max for the server being used to send them, or near the threshold of the Provider processing the connection;
4) If you have ever been temporarily shut down for exceeding email volume from a private domain before, the probationary period lasts anywhere from 3 to as long as 18 months afterward, and is triggered by any abnormalities or limitations established by the Provider that imposed the sanctions originally.

Here is a collection of sites and notations you can study to enrich your understanding of the entire issue, and to find a solution that best applies to your unique situation >> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=how+to+unblock+ip+address &aq=3&oq=how+to+unblock+ip&aqi=g-s1g1g-s1g1g-s1g1g-s4

Keep in mind there are a few internationally recognized "projects" that monitor the issues that concern consumers most (IP Blocking is a priority), and which have a relationship with ICANN as well, and they often provide both educational resources as well as tools to facilitate a reliable solution.

[mustard20]

Re: Email IP Problems

Thank you for the information and that explains a lot. I send more than 200 emails a day communicating with customers so that must be the issue.

I haven't even started my mailing list yet which has had over 5000 people signed up so its clear I need to get "white" listed.

Now I think I understand why companies charge so much to handle mailing list for you.

Again, Thank you

[Vasili]

Re: Email IP Problems

Thank you for the information and that explains a lot. I send more than 200 emails a day communicating with customers so that must be the issue.
I haven't even started my mailing list yet which has had over 5000 people signed up so its clear I need to get "white" listed.
Now I think I understand why companies charge so much to handle mailing list for you.
Again, Thank you

No problem!

Knowledge is power ... and wisdom is not abusing that power. The email distribution companies capitalize on the ignorance of consumers, and their recalcitrance to make the efforts to do things themselves.

I forgot to add that the first thing you should do is to see if your IP is actually Blacklisted before making claims to non-compassionate Customer Service Representatives ... use this link to select a tool to check the status of your IP.

If your IP is not actually blocked (run your IP through at least 3 to confirm), then most likely the 'culprit' is your own Connection Provider .... whether or not they admit it or seem willing to assist, eventually they must deal with you, so it's like a cat-and-mouse game of trying to find the 'hot button' that will compel them to act without being confrontative and spoiling the game.

PS: Way back in 2005-2006 I tried to find a way around the limit of emails sent across servers per hour and per day, as I have more than 260,000 subscribers. The only way I found to effectively email my own opted-in subscribers freely was to use ACT: not only does it's own "browser" to send cleanly and without the hassle of a 'profiled connection,' it has a built-in "scheduler" to send a certain amount of outgoing emails regularly under any limit AND it can personalize each email with the Name and single entry addresses without going through the methods to scrub distribution lists from Cc fields or to leave remnants of list formatting (also a flag). Might want to consider it yourself!

[pink_eeyore]

Re: Email problems

Typically, VodaHost clients will not experience this phenomenon of being 'blocked' unless:
1) Their domain is clearly commercial sounding, and they send more than 100 emails per week to predominently the 3 Communities listed;
2) The bounceback rate for emails sent on those domains is greater than 10% in any given 45 day period;
3) The volume of emails reaches near max for the server being used to send them, or near the threshold of the Provider processing the connection;
4) If you have ever been temporarily shut down for exceeding email volume from a private domain before, the probationary period lasts anywhere from 3 to as long as 18 months afterward, and is triggered by any abnormalities or limitations established by the Provider that imposed the sanctions originally.

How unique is mustard20's situation? Will I, or any other BVer, be having issuing sending monthly promotions to over 500 clients? Is there a standard number of emails sent for week/month we should know about or is it completely random based to the number of recipients blocking an email manually? Do those email providers (yahoo hotmail, gmail, etc.) store that information in a database each time someone blocks an address?! I'm confused... I followed your links, V but still I'm not really getting an answer... I'll take my mom for example. She's a fundraiser (or whatever the new politically correct term is nowadays) for a large University. She uses outlook 2003 (still) and sends emails via groups, not distribution list, to thousands. How does she do it with out being blacklisted like poor Mr mustard20?! What I really what to know, is what do I (we) need to think about for the future to preemptively combat that possibility?!

[Karen Mac]

Re: Email IP Problems

Yes theres a standard... if you read your Terms of Service and your Terms and conditions. No more than 200 emails per hour from the server. Your isp may be even less.. they may allow as little as 25 per hour and if you hook up thru them..even tho its SERVER mail they can shut down your account to connect to the internet.

You can bypass them and connect to control panel and send direct from control panel or program in control panel, but NOT your desktop or outlook.

Thats why a PROFESSIONAL service is reccommended so this doesnt occur.

Karen

[pink_eeyore]

Re: Email IP Problems

I see. I will now have to figure out how to create my MS publisher created email marketing templates to display the way I want it to for emailing through cpanel... Are we then permitted to email 50 people per hour until we get our mailing lists out or will this be seen as unethical?! Is this with any hosting company or just BV because it is a huge inconvenience. My objective reason for getting my site was so I can reach more clients and for that, I will need email newsletters and so forth to maintain customer relations and service. How do large companies like HP for example send millions of weekly newsletters via email? Is it just because they have their own servers?! Why are we punished, or more correctly deterred from growing our business without purchasing our own servers?! I thought about using iContact but the email coming from third party is not professional for my taste.

Is this limited to per email account or per the website? What if my employees are also sending their clients at the same time I am unknowingly as we mostly work from our home and rarely meet?!

Thank you Karen for the explaination, I will go read the Terms and Conditions more thoroughly. It's been 11 months since I was shopping for a host... Now to go learn emailing via cpanel... for clarifications so we all understand, you mean my webmail account(s), correct?

[Karen Mac]

Re: Email IP Problems

I believe theres a program phpmail in fantastico and if you are using a forum or whatever you can mail thru there as well.

One other work around is to use GROUPS on say Yahoo, or Msn...you just post your mail and they login to check it and read it or not.

Karen

[pink_eeyore]

Re: Email IP Problems

I finally got BV and other programs down while perfecting scripts and feeling pretty good about my self to now learn I need to learn even more! I love learning and I am sure I will be learning much much more in the months/years to come until I finally get it down to only have to outsource it or hire someone so I can actually have time to do my work;)

Thank you for the other options (yhaoo groups and all), I will look into it but a good chunk of my clients are important business CEO, lawyers, and politicians (and their connections) in the top 1% while the lower end are no poorer then 100k yearly. They need direct personal professional looking correspondence. I've been lucky enough to have those connections in this community but professionalism and an image is costing. These people, my targeted market are not the yahoo group types...

I'll figure out away. It's not that I am close to 200 emails an hour, I can always send 50-100 per hour or better yet per day, but business is booming and it may sneak up on me fairly quickly now that I am keeping every client on record with newsletter events, reminders or specials. I'm glad for Mustard20 post or I could have been caught with my pants down.

Last thing, if I do get blacklisted will it affect my SEO ranking or is it just an internal issue between myself and my host?! I presume I misunderstood what unlimited bandwidth, emails, etc., meant. It was also a big part of choose BV but now I am really glad for it for this Forum more than anything else, I think this has more value if used properly!

Thanks again!

[Vasili]

Re: Email IP Problems

Save you MS Publisher-created templates as HTML and import them to Outlook. Be sure you adjust the settings to "print" at 300 DPI.

Another way is to create your email document background as a PDF (since most email filters will approve images morseso than HTML --- many 'turn off' links and such as an anti-spam measure).