Reducing SPAM via Email Authentication
Major ISP's use email authentication in an effort to reduce domain abuse, so it is important for a domain owner to specify their email sending and authentication policies.
Different ISP's use one or a combination of SPF/SenderID and DKIM/DomainKeys to authenticate emails and prevent Sender Address Forgery.
Authenticating emails results in higher delivery rates. Failed authentication will result in emails being marked as SPAM and/or delivered directly to the SPAM folder.
A number of email clients highlight authenticated emails improving trust and open rates.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Sender ID
SPF and Sender ID are designed to prevent Sender Address Forgery by allowing the receiving system to check authorised senders for a domain.
Spikemail typically sends emails on your behalf from our servers using a client specified from address eg info@client.com
For every from domain we recommend you create SPF records (via DNS TXT records) that include all servers authorised to send email on behalf of that domain including the Spikemail servers.
You can read more about Sender Policy Framework at www.openspf.org
And you can read more about Sender ID at www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/technologies/senderid/default.mspx
Anti-Spoofing Mail Rules
Anti-spoofing rules implement a mail sending policy that prevents unauthorised servers sending email to your domain using a from address in your domain. eg
From: info@client.com
To: person@client.com
If you use an inbound email filtering system which implements anti-spoofing rules you will need to whitelist the Spikemail servers so that we can send email on your behalf to users of your domain.
DKIM and DomainKeys
DKIM and its predecessor DomainKeys use cryptographic keys to electronically sign an entire email in a way that can be verified by the receiver and guards against tampering during transmission.
If you are unable to implement DKIM easily on your existing domain and mail server we recommend you create a subdomain such as mail.client.com
If you cannot implement DKIM on any of your domains, we can create a subdomain on myspikemail.com eg client.myspikemail.com and info@client.myspikemail.com
You can read more about DKIM at www.dkim.org
And you can read more about DomainKeys at antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys
Enterprise Class Bounce Management
Spikemail uses Variable Envelope Return Path (VERP) to enable accurate detection of undeliverable email addresses by sending each message individually using a unique return path for each recipient.
Other systems send to multiple recipients and struggle to match the bounce message with the actual recipient.
Our Bounce Rules
We automatically set the status to bounced after:
- 5 temporary or soft bounces over at least 14 days
- 3 permanent or hard bounces over at least 7 days
Examples of temporary or soft bounces are mailbox full, message size too large or DNS / network failure. A permanent or hard bounce is user unknown.
Spam Filter Analysis
Here are some of the reasons why various filters may reject your email:
- Message text analysis
- Keyword analysis for excessive spammy words including popular marketing terms
eg buy, special, competition, free, etc - Low ratio of text to images
- HTML and text parts differ significantly
- EXCESSIVE UPPERCASE WORDS
- Keyword analysis for excessive spammy words including popular marketing terms
- Incorrect SPF records
Spikemail Servers
SPF: include:myspikemail.com
smtp1-1.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.232]
smtp1-2.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.233]
smtp1-3.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.234]
smtp1-4.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.235]
smtp1-5.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.236]
smtp1-6.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.237]
smtp1-7.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.238]
smtp1-8.myspikemail.com [174.142.218.239]
