Faster Emailing on Godaddy with PHP

[amature_php]

Hi,

I use the PHP mail() to send out confirmation/alert emails to users on a godaddy hosted site. The emails send properly, however, it is not uncommon for the emails to take 20-30min to deliver(the fastest I've tested was 7min). So my question is how can I send emails faster so that when a user leaves my page and signs into their email, boom, there it is. I've come across SwiftMailer and sendgrid.com but I'm not sure if these are the answer to my problem. I'm sure there is an easy fix, but as my username suggests, I'm clearly not there yet. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[g1smd]

Presumably GD batch outgoing emails and send them in bulk periodically?

[amature_php]

I think I read something to that effect somewhere. But where would that leave me? What are my options? (or do I have any?)

Thanks

[amature_php]

Sorry. To clarify, I am by no means married to the mail() function. I'd gladly do something else if it would speed things up. Sendgrid.com might be a way to go and I am not opposed to paying a little for what I need, it just seems that there should be a good way of doing it open source out there. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for the input

[rocknbil]

There is another slightly annoying thing about GD mail, but they have reason for it (to set mail limits and effect controls on spammers.) All of your mail does *not* go directly from your server, it passes through the GD mail relay servers - view a normal incoming mail header to see the path. So part of the delay may be from getting hung up in the relay servers, especially if it's a shared plan. I doubt anything you do at your server level would help this much.

[amature_php]

Is there anything I can do? Would I have to leave GD hosting to make it better? From what I am reading it seems like there is a way to avoid using GD mail server, could that be possible?

Thanks for the help

[amature_php]

It seems my problem isn't as common as I would have imagined. No matter, I stumbled across a solution. I downloaded SwiftMailer and with easy code insertion I was able to send mail flawlessly through gmail and my sendgrid account SMTP servers. However, I was only able to accomplish this on my localhost server and upon uploading to GoDaddy I found the same code failed. I learned from a GD rep that the necessary ports(465,587) are blocked for security reasons thus disabling the use of outside SMTP servers. I am saying farewell to GD once and for all and moving to a dedicated server(something I should have done a while ago).