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Ask HN: Yahoo spam filter, is it possible to get through?

8 points by Frocer ↗ HN
Hi all,

I have been trying to tackle the problem of getting through Yahoo's spam filter for months now without luck -- hopefully you guys could give me some tips. Our service is not sending mass e-mail or anything, just Email confirmations upon registration and notification emails.

I followed all the tips from this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=92022

I have implemented RDNS lookup, SPF record, and DomainKeys/DKIM

I am able to easily get through Hotmail and Gmail's spam filters... but Yahoo is just constantly giving me a headache. I have tried everything under the sun other than calling Yahoo and scream my heads off, could anyone shed some light? Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

8 comments

[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 51.0 ms ] thread
ssanders82
Can I ask which changes were necessary to get through Hotmail? Gmail isn't a problem, but Hotmail occasionally is for us. (Same situation - registration confirmation, etc.)
Frocer
In my experience, setting up a SPF record will basically solve the problem for Hotmail and Gmail. However, I have heard Gmail uses a reputation-based system, so basically you are innocent until proven guilty... so make sure your users actually want to receive additional emails. From what I read, it only takes a few people marking your Email as spam to get blacklisted. I haven't had this problem yet though.

I recommend you to check out the link I listed in my original post -- there are some great tips in there for getting through spam filters.

alex_c
Call Yahoo and scream your heads off (politely).

I'm serious. Hotmail was willing to work with us to help us get things working. If you've already jumped through all the silly technical hoops, have a legitimate case for sending the emails, and comply with their terms, try to get through to someone at Yahoo. They have no vested interest in keeping legitimate emails from their users' inboxes.

blored
Technically we e-mailed our heads off. Still, to this day we're out of the yahoo spam filter (for now).
nfriedly
Here's what I've observed. It doesn't directly apply to your problem, but may shed a little light:

My company sends out a lot of emails to our users. Yahoo will occasionally, for no known reason, put our first email into spam. From then on, unless the user explicitly marks that email as not spam, yahoo bounces all future emails sent to that user with a "mailbox doesn't exist" message.

I've repeatedly had to do phone support where I directed the user to their spam folder to find our very first email. Once that gets ok'd we no longer have any trouble with that specific user.

On the topic of hotmail, this article is interesting: http://hubpages.com/hub/Hotmail_Fails_To_Deliver_Up_To_81_Of...

dedwards
Or you can always just outsource the problem to a company like www.icontact.com since they have whitelist agreements with all the major ISPs.

Good Luck!