Different domain for emailing from?

Main domain blacklist danger

[CromeYellow]

One of our websites that collects opt-in email addresses pretty well has a problem.

Last month, for the first time, we sent out a broadcast email to these addresses (around 15,000). Despite following all the rules, we got onto a blacklist.

At the moment it's only a small one and is not really causing problems, but I can see this getting worse as the list grows.

The problem is that the mailing software is on the main domain and so blacklisting causes a problem for order confirmations and support emails.

I am thinking about moving the mailing software to its own domain, but it needs to be something recognisable for customers so they know who it's from.

Does anyone have experience or recommendations for this? The domain is 2-word unhyphenated, but we have the hyphenated version too - should we use that, or should we go to an external provider now?

Thanks

Cy

[Romeo]

CromeYellow,

the spam mail blacklisting is usually done on the mail server's IP address level, not on domain name level.
So you actually don't need another domain name, but another server box. Although that new mail server needs a domain name, you won't have to register a completely new one. You may simply give it a sub-domain name like listserver.example.com or newsletter.example.com, if you are in control of your DNS definitions.

This move may, or, however, may not solve your problem at all. There are blacklisting operations that start with a single server's IP address, but then are going to expand the blacklist to larger IP subnet ranges, if they think a major spam problem persists (SPEWS, for example).

Regards,
R.

[derekwong28]

We had the same problem with and it was even more sophisticated than that. The mailing was actually done using different domain, mail server, and ip address. The domains that were blacklisted appeared in the text of our message only. I cannot see any way round that. The way things are going, all mailing lists will be useless soon.

[CromeYellow]

Thanks folks - it looks like we're going to need to go to an external solution. Now all I have to do is find a good vendor that provides autoresponders as well as broadcast!

[wingslevel]

you can use an outsource mail service who makes it their business to get you on all of the white lists and keep you off of the blacklists, or you can dedicate the resources to do it yourself (assuming your mail is really legit opt-in etc.)