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Sending email using any from: email

Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 4:44 am
by decipher
We have a virtual dedicated server, and I have developed a mass mailing script for our clients.

My question is this, what are the implications of using our SMTP server to send emails with an email domain that does not point to our server ip? Will the recipient server check to see if the email domain has been registered with our IP? Are there no issues with regards to using any sort of email domain? For example if I set the from address as a hotmail or yahoo domain, will the recipient SMTP server mark this as spam?

Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:15 am
by chuckl
The 'How not to send Spam' section of the Swiftmailer docs is a very good guide to your questions, but from my experience the following are a reasonable guide:

Any domain for which intend to send mail should have an MX record for your server with an appropriate priority.
Reverse DNS dhould be set up and working.

Since you are sending mail, all domains should have an SPF record that includes your server.

Your servers domain should exist and have it in the DNS records, i.e. mydomain.com should have a DNS entry for myserver.mydomain.com.

If you are sending from a dynamic/changing IP address i.e. home or similar ADSL without a fixed IP address, you're on a hiding to nothing, as you will be almost automatically blacklisted.
It is a good idea to run the domains through a DNSReport at http://www.dnsstuff.com, and fix any complaints it has about the domain DNS and Mail records in particular.

The 'free' services Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc and AOL are the most difficult. Everything has to be set up correctly against a changing set of requirements. I have seen claims that Hotmail delete rather than spam bin suspect emails, without any bounce notification, so its failry important to get it right.

It is also important that the from addresses etc are email addresses that actually exist. Many mail servers do a reverse connect and a Rcpt To to see if the receiving mail server for the from addresses domain will accept mail for the sending address before they will accept the incoming mail.

A similar situation for the Envelope Address if you are sending from a website, since this typically defaults to nobody@mydomain.com, or similar, and should definitely be overridden.

Rgds,

Re: Sending email using any from: email

Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 5:39 am
by Chris Corbyn
decipher wrote:We have a virtual dedicated server, and I have developed a mass mailing script for our clients.

My question is this, what are the implications of using our SMTP server to send emails with an email domain that does not point to our server ip? Will the recipient server check to see if the email domain has been registered with our IP? Are there no issues with regards to using any sort of email domain? For example if I set the from address as a hotmail or yahoo domain, will the recipient SMTP server mark this as spam?
I think what you're referring to is SPF (http://www.openspf.org/). SPF prevents spammers from sending emails from your address and on the same token it prevents you from sending emails from your clients' addresses. In other words, always send "From" your own domain, but set the Reply-To address to be the Clients' address. Even the big companies like Yahoo and Google do this.

Posted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:56 am
by decipher
Ahh I see..
I really have little knowledge in this area.
I have been sending email in the past with "from" addresses that do not correspond to our server, and tests showed that the email passed most spam filters, other than hotmail (which even with using our own from email does not get passed the spam filter).
So what you are saying is that we will get blacklisted if we send email using swift, from an email domain that does not point to our server?