Emails from certain domain always end up in SPAM

[JonMason771]

Hi - I send email from park-church.uk out to a couple of hundred people on our mailing list. Almost all these get through with no problem. However, everyone using Virgin gets their emails delivered to their SPAM folder. 

I also use Virgin media (ntlworld, actually!) - and all my messages end up in spam. I've tried flagging those messages as "not spam" countless dozens of times, maybe hundreds. It's made no difference at all. 

I've checked the blacklist sites I can find, our domain doesn't trigger anything nasty that I can see. The emails themselves are pretty innocuous as far as I can make out. Emails do not get bounced back to our mailserver so I have nothing to go on as to why Virgin are marking them as spam.

So does anyone know why Virgin blocking them? And is there anything that can be done? 

Many thanks,

Jon.

[coenoby]

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@JonMason771 wrote:

So does anyone know why Virgin blocking them? And is there anything that can be done? 

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I am not a member of VM staff so I cannot give a definitive answer but I have an good idea what the issue might be.

I have just checked and your domain "park-church.uk" does not have a DMARC or DKIM record set up. Virgin Media make use of those records to check  each incoming email to ensure that the sending address has not been "spoofed" (faked).

So, because they cannot check the authenticity of park-church.uk emails, they probably flag the incoming emails from your domain as being spam "just to play safe" and protect their customers.

"I've tried flagging those messages as "not spam" countless dozens of times, maybe hundreds. It's made no difference at all." 

That's right, VM actually say that flagging an email as "not spam" simply moves it to the inbox, it does not stop future emails from being flagged as spam.

I suspect the reason your emails do not get flagged by other email services may well be down to the fact that other email services have better methods of allowing customers to whitelist incoming emails that would otherwise be flagged as spam.

Here's an overview of DMARC DKIM and SPF (your domain already has an SPF record) SPF DMARC & DKIM Explained 

However, your best bet is to contact the Domain Registrar that was used to obtain the park-church.uk domain, so perhaps GoDaddy, IONOS or whoever. Alternatively, that company may well have step by step instructions on their online support pages of how to set these records up.

I hope that makes sense,

Coenoby

[JonMason771]

Oh wow, many thanks for this. I'll take it up with UK2! 

Best regards,

Jon.

[JonMason771]

OK, so I asked UK2 to set up DMARC or DKIM records. But we're still getting all emails from our domain flagged as spam by Virgin Media. Does anyone have any further ideas?

[coenoby]

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@JonMason771 wrote:

OK, so I asked UK2 to set up DMARC or DKIM records. But we're still getting all emails from our domain flagged as spam by Virgin Media. Does anyone have any further ideas?

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Thanks for the update on that.

Just to clarify something, when you send emails from your domain do you use the server settings recommended by UK2 or do you use the VM email server settings? The UK2 settings are detailed here https://www.uk2.net/knowledgebase/display/UK2/How+To+Set+Up+IMAP+Email+Accounts+In+Outlook 

The SPF record for your domain specifies that emails must come from a hostedemail server which includes the mail.uk2.net server.

Coenoby

[JonMason771]

Thanks coenoby,

Emails from our domain park-church.uk are sent via UK2's servers, using their webmail software. I've been doing a bit more digging. I think it's something to do with the number of emails we're sending in one go. If I send 1 email to my own ntlworld email address, it's fine.

But we normally BCC about 200 addresses, and that always gets flagged as spam by Virgin Media, seemingly regardless of content. As far as I'm aware, no other ISPs flag it as spam.

Many thanks,

Jon.

[coenoby · Accepted solution]

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@JonMason771 wrote:

But we normally BCC about 200 addresses, and that always gets flagged as spam by Virgin Media, seemingly regardless of content.

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That could well be the answer. Spammers use extensive BCC lists when they send emails and VM may well consider that an email with 200 BCC recipients looks like spam.

It is not necessarily quite as simple as that however. Email spam filters usually look at a number of different factors to decide whether to flag an incoming email as spam so there may be additional factors at play. The number of BCC's may just tip the balance to make your emails look "spammy" in VM's eyes.

VM will never reveal the precise details of their spam filtering because that information would help spammers to keep within those limits and beat the filters.

As far as I'm aware, no other ISPs flag it as spam.

As I said earlier, the other thing that may confuse matters is that most email providers offer reliable "whitelisting" options that allow many of your regular recipients to specify that emails from your domain should not be flagged as spam in the future.  Sadly, as you have found VM only allow you to move an email from Spam to the Inbox but that has no effect on similar incoming emails going forward.

At one time VM did say that if the sender is in your VM address book then emails from them would not be flagged as spam. In reality that never seemed to work reliably and it appears that they no longer offer that advice.

Try splitting your distribution list and see if VM's filters are happy with, say 50 recipients.

Coenoby.

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