Improving Yahoo Delivery

PushSend · Apr 15, 2011

If you're just getting into mail, you can easily become overwhelmed by everything that you need to know before you start "blastin' out mail and rakin' in the big bucks!". What's good for AOL, won't be the same as what's good for Hotmail/MSN. And likewise for Yahoo, Gmail and GI, these are all finicky bitches that need to be caressed, smooth talked, "wined and dined" if you will, before they'll give it up like a $2 whore. So what can you do to deliver better into these domains? Follow some sage advice from veteran mailers and start with the basics. Here's what Yahoo has to say about improving delivery to their users:

Enroll in our feedback loop.

If you are signing your emails with DKIM or DomainKeys, enroll for our Complaint Feedback Loop program so you can track your spam complaint rates and keep them in check. Need more information about the program? Visit out our feedback loop FAQs for more details.

Respect the user's mailbox

If a customer entrusts an email address to you during a transaction or for a particular newsletter, they do not expect to receive unrelated messages, such as extraneous marketing emails, in the process. Adding email addresses to other lists without their explicit opt-in is a guaranteed way to lose a customer's trust.

Honor the frequency of the list's intent. If customers believe they are signing up for a monthly newsletter but they start receiving messages on a weekly basis, such a practice will likely prompt users to label your messages as spam.

Use a consistent From: header address.

Your domain name is an important element of your brand. Using it consistently helps us and your recipients to distinguish your email from spam. Additionally, using a static From: address helps users who have set up filters to route messages to a specific folder.

Pay attention to your email's content

Test your email's look and feel with image placeholders. Many users won't see images in your email by default.

Link to domains, not IP addresses. The Yahoo! Mail client warns users that IP address links are dangerous.

Use standard ports. The Yahoo! Mail client warns users that links containing ports are dangerous.

Don't include HTML forms in emails. The Yahoo! Mail client warns users that submitting forms in email can be dangerous.

Don't include Javascript in emails. The javascript is stripped out and will not run.

Don't include embedded objects in emails (like flash or ActiveX). The objects are stripped and will not run.

Honor unsubscribe requests as fast as you honor subscribe requests.

When a user unsubscribes, they don't want to receive that mail anymore. Promptly removing them from the list should help prevent users from marking your messages as spam in the future.

Be CAN-SPAM compliant.

Regardless of where in the world you're sending your mail, make sure that you adhere to the requirements stipulated by the CAN-SPAM Act.

Publish reverse DNS (PTR) records for your sending IPs.

If there is no reverse DNS entry for your IP address, or if it looks like a dynamically-assigned IP instead of a static mail server, Yahoo! is more likely to downgrade its sending reputation.

Secure your mail servers.

Ensure your mail servers are not open to abuse. If your servers act as "open proxies" or "relays," spammers may attempt to send their own mail from your systems. Keep your software up to date with the latest security patches, and always filter user-generated content before sending it out, to help prevent spammers from using your resources and tarnishing your reputation.

Use common-sense settings.

While we have not published guidelines for numbers of connections you can concurrently use, we ask that you treat our resources with respect. The more you take, the fewer there are for others, which may force us to defer your connections.
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

Improving Yahoo Delivery

PushSend VIP

Share This Page