My emails is detected as spam

MichaelHe

I have a site that automaticly sends invoices, validation emails and so on to my costumers with a simply php mail fundtion.
But many are complaining that the emails is taken by their spamfilter. I have tried some hotmails etc. and I can se that it's true. Their go rigth to the spam box everytime.

I have been told that it's my header and MIME type thats wrong, but I just can't get it right.

Rigth now my header looks like this:
$header = "MIME-Version: 1.0" . "\r\n";
$header .= "Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" . "\r\n";
$header .= "From: mymail" . "\r\n";
$header .= "Reply-To: mymail" . "\r\n";
$header .= "X-Mailer: PHP/" . phpversion();

Does anyone have a good idea ?

dougal85

I don't think there is a definative way to be not detected as spam. Otherwise all the spam senders would use it too...

It could be your server has been blacklisted because other people send spam from it...

MarkR

Normally your steps should be:

Ensure that you're not actually sending any spam, either wittingly or unwittingly (spammers might be exploiting your code, or an open relay on the box etc)
Make sure that your internet-facing mail server has a working and correct reverse DNS.
Ensure that you're not violating any SPF policy on your source domain(s)
Don't forge mail's envelope-sender or "From:" - don't claim the message is from anyone who it isn't, or any domain you don't own, control and have permission to send from (see SPF above)
Don't share hosting with spammers (i.e. anyone)
Pay loads of $$$ to those incompetent corrupt bastards who put you on their bent blacklist for no reason whatsoever other than they were in a bad mood at the time, or an idiot AOL loser reported your (non-spam) message as spam
(Depending on your belief this may or may not work) pray.

Mark

MichaelHe

Hi again

Thanks for your replies.
I have my website hosted on a good well knons danish webserver. And I have just made a brand new yahoo mail to test, and I have tried everything with header, and nothing work. It always end up in spam.
I mean, if I send an email from my outlook express it never ends up as spam, so there must be some differentses in the way these emails are send.

My webhost tells me that it is not a server problem. It is my header that is not correct. Though others tell me that it is a problem with thier Domainkey.

halojoy

MichaelHe wrote:
I mean, if I send an email from my outlook express
it never ends up as spam,
so there must be some differences in the way these emails are send.

Of course.
You are logically right here.

So take some time to compare.
One or 2 emails sent from your Outlook
and one or 2 emails sent from your site.

You are smart enough to see what may it be.
Compare:
Header details, signatures, subjects, sender, reply-to, words etc.

I dont know if X-mailer using PHP would be regarded as a spam criteria by anyone.
But who knows...
🙂