How do you get auto-responder emails past Junk filters?

email comfirmation messages get sent to junkmail

[rockit science]

To sign new members up to my site, I have a signup form they must complete. Upon submission of the registration form, an autorespond email is sent to the new registrant instructing them to click on a link to verify their email address.

All works fine, except I see that many of the "test" signups I've sent result in the confirmation email getting automatically tagged as "junk" by the email provider.

Is there something about the header of the email that I could change to avoid this? Is there anything I need to do with the auto-responder to insure that messages can consistently get past the junk and spam filters?

Thanks for your advice.

[sagerock]

You definitely might want to consider some of the wording you use. As you are aware, particular words and phrases can trigger a spam filter.

I see many site (and big sites at that) that tell you to add a particular address to your whitelist or to be sure to check your spam box for a confirmation email.

Email spam is becoming an exponential problem... and your email is getting caught up in it.

[piatkow]

False positives for legitimate automated responses are a serious problem. On one vendor bulletin board that I visit there are regular complains that support tickets have been ignored when an acknowledgement is actually sent for every ticket.

Invariably the email addresses are with Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or Gmail.

[Beagle]

ETA: I just reread the previous posts and saw that sagerock already said a lot of what I wrote, in different words, so I've deleted most of mine and will just say that the "approved sender" or "whitelist" suggestion does seem to get email through even high anti-spam settings: if people follow through on it.

[edited by: Beagle at 2:35 am (utc) on Feb. 22, 2007]

[piatkow]

Given the problem described by the OP there are two issues that are not resolved by using a white list:

1. The customer will not be aware of the need to add the address until after they opt in to the mailing list.

2. Several major email providers are bouncing opt in messages without reference to their customers' spam filters or white lists.