Ever have your email go missing? You write a friend, you don’t hear back, you find out they didn’t get it… Or you send out an email to your list and get almost no clicks on a link you know they’d be interested in…
It’s possible that your signature has gone bad and got you tagged as a spammer!
Are You Being Falsely Convicted?
Unfortunately there’s no “due process” to rescue innocent email. There’s just computer systems, doing the best they can.
Something as simple as a bit.ly link, snipurl.com link or other “bad” link can get your email sent straight to the spam box or even keep it from getting through completely so your recipient never sees it (even in their spam or bulk mail folders). (Want proof?)
Or a trigger word/phrase in your signature line, like “I’ll help you make more money working from home!” could get you tagged as a spammer.
So what can you do?
First, run your signature through a spam checker like http://www.isnotspam.com and know what trigger words generally are (SpamAssassin publishes their list of rules: http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests_3_3_x.html)
Second, don’t use link shorteners in your emails — link shorteners are great for Twitter and social networks, just not for your emails. Install GoCodes if you’re running WordPress and you can redirect any link with it. Use links on your own domain that you control.
Third, check to be sure that your domain isn’t listed as a spammer domain with a tool like mxtoolbox.com If you’re listed, go through the process to get de-listed.
These three tips will help you avoid getting caught in the necessary evil that are spam filters.
Got any other tips on avoiding it? Have you had your email get stuck in spam filters or go missing?
Photo Credit: OneO2/StockFresh
Great help! Never knew this existed. I’m safe.
Thanks for those links. Will definitely run our signature through these.
Great info! What good are all those wonderfuil e-mails if we can’t get them to our audience? You’ve got some winners here! thanks :)
I am thinking it might also be a good idea to also check the email templates of wordpress plugins that automatically send emails when people leave comments or fill in contact forms on your blog (or even turn these features off completely). The concern is that some spam databases keep track of servers that send spam emails, and if you have a dedicated IP address it could end up getting added to a spam black list.
Very handy Michelle!
All too often when this is happening there’s no way to know… Your emails are simply heading straight off to spam. Great to be able to check first.
These tools will be very helpful, I’m about to launch an email campaign! Timely again Michelle, thanks :)
I am so glad I have a go-to expert like you in my corner. You are awesome! I love that you share resources! Thanks Michelle. (Off topic – do you have a video on the UBC about adding the plugin on wordpress so I can add audio and video to my blogs? I can’t embed video and someone told me I need a plug-in) Appreciate your help, Michelle.
It’s safer to use image as signature to avoid spam. There was a time that yahoo made me enter a spam check captcha, weird! Thanks for the tips Mich :)
Hi Michelle,
Yep, happens quite a bit.
Not so much my emails getting caught in filters, but my blog, when leaving comments. “Cash” sets off the filters immediately.
Thanks for sharing the actionable tips. Getting to work on them now ;)
Ryan