muveeMix

Entry: December 3rd, 2006

Hotmail thinks muveeMix emails are junk

As you may know, our service requires registration via an activation system. We send out an email upon registration to make sure the specified email address is (still) in use. After clicking the activation link within the email, the user is activated and no further action is required.

Recently, we’ve noticed that many activation e-mails were never opened, primarily by Hotmail users. To find out why this happens, I used my own Hotmail account to register at muveeMix. At that point I noticed that the activation email went straight to the Junk folder instead of the regular mail box. Since then, I’ve been into discussions with Microsoft Email Delivery Support to find out what’s wrong with our emails.

So far we’ve increased the reputability of our mail server by adding SPF and DomainKeys, which works for both Gmail and Yahoo! (Gmail actually supports both of these frameworks), but so far we haven’t been successful to pass through Microsoft’s SmartScreen™ process. One interesting response I’ve gotten was “Your email looks like spam, but we can’t tell you why as this would render our scanner useless”; good point

In any case, this case is under further investigation and I hope to update you soon on any signs of success.

Update: 04-Dec-2006

Hotmail came back to us saying that our domain has been added to their SenderID program; after two working days the changes should be propagated through their network. In hopeful joy we wait

Update: 07-Dec-2006

Our prayers have been answered! All those sleepless nights have come to an end! Our emails are now accepted on Hotmail accounts as being reputable. Their explanation:

“The deliverability issues on your IP address were based on negative filter verdicts and/or other IP reputation problems”

This is a good lesson to learn for all who are setting up a dedicated host on a recycled IP address