Beating the SPAM filters.
February 17, 2007
I was noticing that all of my email announcements were always getting sent to the SPAM/Bulk box in my Yahoo! email account. Now, Yahoo! is, in my opinion, way too SPAM-filter-happy, but that got me wondering: if Yahoo! is sending my emails to the SPAM box, how many other email services might be doing the same?
That got me worried, especially since I had reason to believe that a fair percentage of people weren't getting my support emails. That's one of the reasons I switched to my support-ticket system instead of doing straight email support.
So I decided to do some testing and research and figure out why Yahoo! was filtering my emails into the SPAM box. Hopefully what I discovered will help you if you find yourself in a similar situation. Also, since Yahoo! is so SPAM-filter-happy, it made sense that if I could figure out how to get past their filters, it would get past almost everybody else's, too.
(Just an aside: GMail has never flagged any of my emails as SPAM. Yahoo! is the only mail provider I've used who would consistently flag my messages as SPAM.)
The first thing I did was look at the full headers of the messages that were going into the SPAM folder. I noticed that it had this line in it:
That told me that Yahoo! considered my message to be part of a bulk mailing–which, in fact, it was, though that alone isn't enough reason to put it in the SPAM folder. So I knew there must be something else going on.
Step by step I tried everything. I changed the FROM field of the message so that it appeared to come from a different domain. I also changed the TITLE field to the title of a message that did not get sent to the SPAM folder. Neither of those actions caused any change–the message was still landing in the SPAM folder.
So I took out the BODY completely and changed it to the BODY of a message that didn't get sent to the SPAM folder. Lo' and behold, the message made it directly into the inbox!
So I started dissecting the BODY to figure out which part of the body was causing the message to land in the SPAM folder. After a few tests, I realized that it was my domain name (jonathanleger.com) appearing in the BODY that was causing the problem.
Then it all made sense. You see, Yahoo! (and other ISP's) give people the ability to click a button that labels the message as SPAM. Now, some people "forget" that they opted-in, but others simply don't realize that by flagging a message as SPAM, they are causing problems for the owner of the list they are on. If you have an opt-in list, you know what I mean–so called "SPAM reports" coming from people who have opted-in of their own accord. It's frustrating, but it's a fact of life in the list-building world.
Yahoo! had gotten the wrong impression about my jonathanleger.com domain, and that domain name just appearing in the BODY was causing Yahoo! to flag my message as SPAM.
The solution? I simply used a new domain (jonleger.com) to redirect people to the pages of jonathanleger.com. When I include jonleger.com in the BODY, Yahoo! lets the messages into the inbox with no complaints.
So if you find yourself caught in the SPAM filters, run a few tests to see if perhaps a domain name you're putting in the BODY has been misflagged as a source of SPAM. If so, use a redirect work-around like I did to get past it.
Here's a tip that got posted in the comments for this post. The tip was so good I had to include it here:
(That tip was submitted by Roger Seher.)
I'm not alone in the struggle against the SPAM filters, as some of the top Internet Marketers in the world are landing in my SPAM folder these days (including the likes of Mike Filsaime). Maybe they'll read this post and implement the work-around themselves. 
Comments
24 Responses to “Beating the SPAM filters.”
-
Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
-
Good stuff, Yahoo seems to be the worst when it comes to dealing with spam. My gmail emails go through with no problems, but yahoo…
Good find, Thanks Jon
use aweber. your email is always in the hotmail spam folder.
Yep good find. I have an email tip to add,
Also take your list, sort by domain. Find the top 5 domains like yahoo gmail, then create test accounts on them.
Before sending out to your list, send to your test account list, check to make sure they got the email. Then look at your web stats for busy days on your site. Then time your email to be sent out to the list just before YOUR busy time on YOUR site, then
Dominate Your Market!
Useful info, thanks.
I'm setting up a new Get Response auto-responder account at the moment so will file this little tidbit for later use if I have issues with Yahoo.
I've had the same trouble. I found out that just simply including one of my domains in my sig was causing email loss.
Worse still, that domain (which had not spammed!) was on some central database of blacklisted sites. suburl.com or some similar name. Look up 'blacklisted domains' or similar in google to find out more. Think you can get off those lists? Not without a huge effort.
Gary
Great post. Thank you for sharing.
Do you think changing the domain is a temporary measure? As soon as your emails go through, a % of people are going to click the spam button then this new domain will get blacklisted and you'll have to start all over again.
Maybe Gary's suggestion is a more permanent way of getting the message through.
I wonder whether there's a service that can fight your case for you?
Ly
Thanks for sharing that Jonathan!
I have an idea, we could buy disposable domains every 3 or 4 months and use these as redirectors. The domains would only cost like $9 so its a painless drop. And these domain names doesn't have to 'make sense'. People are used to short redirector and tracking domains anyway so a random 5 letter domain would work.
Lysander:
It doesn't appear temporary, and the fix appears to be working, so I'm probably going to do like Aaron says and use "throw away" domains for redirection if it continues to be an issue.
To whoever made the comment about AWeber:
Mike Filsaime uses AWeber, and his stuff still lands in my SPAM box. It's not about the service you use, it's about the content of the messages.
Well I took Roger's advice and ran a little report to see what the top email domains are on my list. Check it out:
yahoo.com => 4412
gmail.com => 3018
hotmail.com => 2258
aol.com => 1053
comcast.net => 431
Those are the top 5. Gmail has no problems with my emails, and I know how to get past Yahoo's filters now. Now it's time to check out hotmail and aol… So I'm off to test!
Thanks for the awesome tip Roger. I liked it so much I included it in the blog post.
Jon
Are you saying that if people mark a email as spam, it is referring to the "From" email, and if that email address is found in in the "Body", then it is sent to the spam box? How does the "From" email address with the different email in the "Body" get through?
Is the "From" address of no importance then?
Wouldn't your email @askjonleger in the "From" be targeted for spam rather than the @jonleger address in the body. And again, you do list the "askjonleger in the body, in your sig.
Thanks for your efforts and sharing.
Doug
Yahoo! is cool, GMail is cool, AOL is cool–HotMail is filing my emails as SPAM. I'm working on it, and will post my results here when I get them…
Doug:
I didn't have any problems with Yahoo no matter what was in the FROM field (which is a bit frightening, since it's so easy to spoof those headers).
The only problem occured when jonathanleger.com was in the BODY.
AskJonLeger is apparently "clean" in Yahoo's eyes, so it passes through the filters.
Great stuff Jon.
I use Aweber as well, and I heard it's one of the better-liked services by the email providers.
Well, maybe Mike's messages are too marketing-related and filters seem to hate marketing messages alot.
Jon, funny thing, your email announcements were never getting sent to my MS Outlook Junk folder, but the last one was. It looks like you lost the battle to Outlook while beating the Yahoo! spam filter. And my gut tells me that your most important audience has other e-mail accounts than yahoo.com, hotmail.com, etc. Am I wrong?
Interesting comments.
Those central spam sites like suburl.com are the main problam, because they blanket your domain or email address, and shut out everyone else from receiving you messages.
I don't have the faintest idea of controlling the problem. It's a no win situation - I go into my Bulk or Spam boxes ever so often and retrieve stuff that I need. Put them on my whitelist and forget the rest.
I am just trying to build a list, but the problem of spam is a 2-edged sword - it swings both way. We all use these free mail services and then complain about the service that is just trying to help us maintain some sanity with the flood of messages that are being thrown at us every day.
I joined a Yahoo Group when I started with them and got 6,000 pieces of mail in 3 days. I started a Gmail and don't go there any more after 30,000 pieces. mail. Where do they come from? Without these spam filters, I would not be paying for my primary business email address.
I had to close down my GuessBook, BulletinBorad and take the comments off my Multiblog site after giving up trying to control the spam from porn, drugs etc., these people drop 50 to 100 links per posting.
I don't really have to use Free Mail, I have 2,500 boxes on my server I could use - but then I have to contend with controlling the filters there, too.
Good Luck!
maxconfusion
I had to laugh John, sorry but your email telling me about this post was sent to my junk mail lol…
Luckily I always check in there before dumping it.
I seem to get duplicate emails from you, (must be because I've purchased more than one of your products). Some get through some are directed to the junk folder.
What a pain. I beat some of the filters only to be caught in others.
One thing I noticed was causing a problem (which I fixed after emailing everybody about this post) was that I had the wrong originating IP in the headers.
That doesn't matter to Yahoo, but it does to some other mail servers, so perhaps that's what happened.
Great stuff Jon! Sometimes it IS just something as a URL! I did some of what you said in your article and did a test and lo and behold the "spam" indicator on a test message was no longer there for a yahoo acct!
NOW … someone also said something about Aweber. GREAT service BUT SOMETIMES opt ins even WITH "opt in verification" are not verified due to issues with IP address not passing thru to the system from the capture form etc and a LOT of my leads are not mailable or verifyable, so I use my own hosted solution for that issue.
There is NO perfect "bulk" mailing system!
I have both a Yahoo email account and a Cox Communications email account. I have removed all the spam filters from my Yahoo account (by the way, I have Yahoo Premium at $ 19.95 per year).
Yahoo has been my most reliable email account. I get everything through Yahoo. In fact, I was obliged to start using my Yahoo account instead of my Cox account because a huge number of messages were being blocked by Cox, in spite of my removing all the spam filters at Cox as well, they still decided what was proper for me to receive. Yahoo has never done that.
Jonathan, I get ALL your messages at Yahoo, and I also get all the other subscriptions I have ever requested . Whereas Cox would not let most of my subscriptions go through, I get everything with Yahoo.
The only thing to do is to remove the spam filters.
I had to respond because my experience with Yahoo mail has been the very best so far.
Best Regards,
Robert
Robert:
Perhaps with the Premium account it's different because you have more control over the filters.
Glad to hear some Yahoo! accounts aren't having trouble though.
Someone should tell the people at Kayako!! Every automated email I send from their system gets spam filtered by yahoo and gmail (and it's installed on my domain, so must be something in the content of their mails!).
Hi —
Mark Hendricks here.
I've found that Yahoo looks at a lower level to know if you're a good guy mailer. They look at the server level rather than your domain name… and typically place much more importance on this rather than the content.
They do like to see that your server name is the same as the domain name that you are sending from.
Each large ISP has there own way of dealing with these issues, so you need to contact the "postmaster" of each one and get their requirements for getting delivery — I've done it will all the majors and get 90% or better delivery to them (sometimes 95% or better).
I've discussed the process in my listbuilding course and my 2 day events package.
Best,
Mark
Every ISP potentially has a different system for filtering so you need to pick the most popular ones and test to see what gets through. What works today may not work tomorrow.
If you segment your list by destination domain and have a way to track clickthroughs, this is another way to see if there is a problem.
One thing I have learned to avoid is putting too many links in my emails, as this sometimes causes problems.
If your messages are truly worthwhile reading and you have a track record of rewarding your readers, then putting the message on a web page and keeping the email short, with a simplke link to the page with the message, can help a lot.
In the end you have to continually test, monitor the results, and react. It this was easy, anyone could do it.
Thats a good way.
I use double opt-ins and getresponse.com.
With the double opt-in I tell the subscribers to "white-list" my email adress and put it to their adress-book.
That works pretty well.
Another thing:
they always get a "hot" infoseries about a topic first.
When they don´t receive a part I tell them to do the things above and to contact their provider to tell them I am the "good one".
Result: over 50% open rate.