Yet Another Mail Merge - Avoid being blacklisted by spam filters with SPF

Post date: Apr 30, 2015 4:13:48 PM

Some YAMM users have reported that many of their emails were wrongfully flagged as spam (wrongfully because the content of their emails couldn't be considered "spammy"). So I've asked my teammates at Revevol to help and discovered that in every case there were issues with the MX settings on the domain of the user.

It's very easy to perform a check, you just need to enter your domain name in this MX checker provided by Google:

https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/checkmx/check

And it will return a list of all problems detected with the configuration of your domain, like missing SPF record.

Google states in its documentation that "If your domain does not have an SPF record, some recipient domains may reject messages from your users because they cannot validate that the messages come from an authorized mail server."

Wikipedia also explains that "If a domain publishes an SPF record, spammers and phishers are less likely to forge e-mails pretending to be from that domain, because the forged e-mails are more likely to be caught in spam filters which check the SPF record. Therefore, an SPF-protected domain is less attractive to spammers and phishers. Because an SPF-protected domain is less attractive as a spoofed address, it is less likely to be blacklisted by spam filters and so ultimately the legitimate e-mail from the domain is more likely to get through."

So starting today, users of Yet Another Mail Merge will be notified in the add-on if we see issues with the DNS configuration of their domain, with information they can share with their IT department / domain name registrar.