Email Signatures

Is your email being tagged as [***SPAM***]

[pageoneresults]

I was working with someone over the phone today and had them send me an email. It ended up in my Junk Email box. I knew why and it was great to be able to do some live testing.

This person has a signature that contains their company logo as a .gif. I've seen this happening more and more lately where email signatures with corporate logos are getting tagged as spam. Remove the image and viola, it comes through just fine. We tested this using various scenarios and each time the logo gif was present, the email was tagged as [***SPAM***].

While email signatures with graphics may look nice, they do present some issues when it comes to today's spam filtering so be careful.

Do you use a graphic in your email signature? Are your emails ending up in BULK email boxes?

[coopster]

Was this just your standard Outlook installation that was pushing the mail into the junk mail folder? Or was it your antivirus software that did so?

[pageoneresults]

Or was it your antivirus software that did so?

Norton AV.

But, its not just mine. He also has gotten complaints from other clients that his emails are ending up in their Junk Email box.

[coopster]

So you believe it is Outlook then? I'm wondering what source software is actually marking it as spam ...

[jtara]

Something's not making sense here. Norton AV has nothing to do with spam detection. (Norton DOES have an anti-spam product, though. Is that what you were referring-to?)

There are numerous anti-spam solutions. MOST of them run on the server that you retrive your mail from. Filtering in Outlook, etc. as well as plug-ins for Outlook and other email clients is, in many cases, only the last line of defense.

Take a look at the detailed headers in the emails that are marked as spam. The solutions that run on the server generally put some details in headers, including the name of the filtering product.

If you are seeing your email tagged as spam by multiple products, then you do, indeed, have a problem.

I'd take out the logo anyway. Why put anything in an email that doesn't need to be there? It's supurfluous. And, after getting a few emails from the same person - annoying.

[jatar_k]

I would bet it is a combination of factors, small increases in spam rating from various things getting him a +5 rating which can pass or fail depending on the setting on the receiving mail server.

check this list
[spamassassin.apache.org...]

I can think of a ton of those that adding a logo/sig could trigger

[pageoneresults]

Norton AV has nothing to do with spam detection.

Sorry, it's Outlook's Junk Email filter. And after some digging, I believe I have mine set one level higher than default so some emails that use an image in their signature end up in my Junk Email box.

Again, this is something that is becoming more and more prevalent as I work with clients and their email management.