TagBlocking

They Must Have Changed Something…

One of the most common refrains I hear from folks with delivery problems is that the filters must have changed because their mail suddenly started to go to the bulk folder. A few years ago, I posted about how even when there is no change in the sender’s behavior, reputation can slowly erode until mail suddenly goes to the Gmail bulk folder. Much of that still applies – although the...

Is email dead?

These last few years have been something, huh? Something had to give and, in my case, that something was blogging. There were a number of reasons I stopped writing here, many of them personal, some of them more global. I will admit, I was (and still am a little) burned out as it seemed I was saying and writing the same things I’d been saying and writing for more than a decade. Taking time...

Mentally modelling filters

When we talk about filters, we often think there is one filter. But, in many cases there are multiple stages of filters, each examining mail in a different way. In deliverability terms the easiest filters to ignore are the individual user filters. Mostly because there’s nothing we can do about those. These are the baysean style filters built into a lot of email clients as well as specific...

Increase in Barracuda IP blocks

A number of folks are talking about a significant uptick in Barracuda IP blocks over the last few days. These blocks appear to be affecting wide ranges of IPs across multiple networks. Folks have been reaching out to Barracuda through their unblocking form. Many of them are not receiving answers, but some are getting answers that say they may be old listings, and there is no current data to...

All filters are not equal

Many questions about delivery problems often assume that there is one standard email filter and the rules are the same across all of them. Unfortunately, this isn’t really the case. The biggest divide is consumer versus business filters. Business filters don’t really care about things like engagement. A sender could have near perfect engagement with a message to a business. But a...

5 steps for addressing deliverability issues

Following on from my reading between the lines post I want to talk a little bit about using the channels. From my perspective the right way to deal with 99% of issues is through the front door. Last week I found myself talking to multiple folks in multiple fora (emailgeeks slack channel, mailop, IRC) about how to resolve blocking issues or questions. All too often, folks come into these spaces...

Delisting at ATT

ATT used to have a webform to use to request delisting. I’ve heard reports over the last few months that the form isn’t working. This week, the website hosting the form disappeared. I don’t know for sure, but this looks like this is either deliberate or there’s just no one in charge of the site and it got lost. ATT provides an email address for delisting, too...

Filters do what we tell them

In the email space we talk about filters as if they were sentient beings. “The filters decided…” “The filters said…” This is convenient shorthand, but tends to mask that filters aren’t actually deciding or saying anything. Filters are software processes that follow rules dictated by the people who create and maintain them. The rules flow from the goals...

Use the form…

A lot of senders get frustrated with the time it can take to get a response from some ISPs. It’s totally understandable, for a lot of companies delivery problems are all hands on deck level problems. They want them fixed and they want them fixed IMMEDIATELY. They want feedback that their issue is being addressed. They want to know someone at the ISP knows there is a problem. I’ve...

Prepping for EEC

Tomorrow I head off to New Orleans to the EEC conference. It’s my first one and I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the people I only know online. I’ll be speaking on two panels on Friday: All You Ever Wanted to Know about Deliverability (But Were Afraid to Ask) at 10:50. This is your chance to ask those questions of myself and other experts in the field. I always...

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