Let my hair grow back, help my get email to yahoo

February 12, 2009 7:49 AM

Help me figure out why yahoo is auto-delivering emails from my web server directly to any yahoo accounts bulk mail folder. No, I am not a spammer.

My friends and I are on the threshold of launching a new social networking site, however for the life of me I cannot get our emails to show up in a yahoo account inbox, they always wind up in the bulk mail folder. These emails would be of two varieties - an invite from a friend, or a verification email for signing up.

I have gone to the yahoo bulk mail provider section multiple times to figure out what I'm doing wrong, and have put in place all of their recommendations. I have installed DomainKeys and DKIM, I have put in a proper sender id record, the IP address that the emails are coming from (67.207.149.60) does not appear to be on any black lists, but I still get tagged as spam. I have been in correspondence with them over this matter, but their answers have been less than helpful. The last message I received was that I was undergoing a 'monitoring' period of two weeks where my emails would oscillate between junk and inbox. So far, I have yet to see anything delivered to an inbox except when stating explicitly that the '[e-mail]' email address is not spam. But of course that only works on an account by account basis.

Any points, tips, glaring problems, please let me know. I've been tearing my hair out over this problem over the course of the last couple months over this!

I'll copy and paste the mail log messages as well as a copy of the email with header.


Logged messages:

*********************************
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28654]: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28654]: B6B79837D: client=localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/cleanup[28657]: B6B79837D: message-id=<4>
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28654]: disconnect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/qmgr[15587]: B6B79837D: from=, size=1788, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28659]: connect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtp[28658]: discarding EHLO keywords: 8BITMIME STARTTLS
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28659]: E05B38383: client=localhost[127.0.0.1]:33041
Feb 12 09:31:48 babylolly dkimproxy.out[2259]: DKIM signing - signed; message-id=<4>, signer=, from=
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/cleanup[28657]: E05B38383: message-id=<4>
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/qmgr[15587]: E05B38383: from=, size=2751, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/smtp[28658]: B6B79837D: to=, relay=127.0.0.1[127.0.0.1]:10027, delay=0.32, delays=0.1/0.05/0.03/0.14, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 2.0.0 Ok: queued as E05B38383)
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/smtpd[28659]: disconnect from localhost[127.0.0.1]
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/qmgr[15587]: B6B79837D: removed
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/smtp[28660]: E05B38383: host c.mx.mail.yahoo.com[216.39.53.2] said: 451 Message temporarily deferred - [] (in reply to end of DATA command)
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/smtp[28660]: E05B38383: host g.mx.mail.yahoo.com[209.191.118.103] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (67.207.149.60) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Feb 12 09:31:49 babylolly postfix/smtp[28660]: E05B38383: host b.mx.mail.yahoo.com[66.196.97.250] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (67.207.149.60) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Feb 12 09:31:50 babylolly postfix/smtp[28660]: E05B38383: to=, relay=f.mx.mail.yahoo.com[68.142.202.247]:25, delay=1.2, delays=0.14/0.06/0.88/0.08, dsn=4.0.0, status=deferred (host f.mx.mail.yahoo.com[68.142.202.247] said: 421 Message temporarily deferred - 4.16.51. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html (in reply to end of DATA command))
Feb 12 09:37:20 babylolly postfix/qmgr[15587]: E05B38383: from=, size=2751, nrcpt=1 (queue active)
Feb 12 09:37:20 babylolly postfix/smtp[28688]: E05B38383: host a.mx.mail.yahoo.com[67.195.168.31] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (67.207.149.60) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Feb 12 09:37:20 babylolly postfix/smtp[28688]: E05B38383: host e.mx.mail.yahoo.com[216.39.53.1] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (67.207.149.60) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Feb 12 09:37:20 babylolly postfix/smtp[28688]: E05B38383: host b.mx.mail.yahoo.com[66.196.97.250] refused to talk to me: 421 Message from (67.207.149.60) temporarily deferred - 4.16.50. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html
Feb 12 09:37:20 babylolly postfix/smtp[28688]: E05B38383: host c.mx.mail.yahoo.com[216.39.53.2] said: 421 Message temporarily deferred - 4.16.51. Please refer to http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/defer/defer-06.html (in reply to end of DATA command)
Feb 12 09:37:21 babylolly postfix/smtp[28688]: E05B38383: to=, relay=c.mx.mail.yahoo.com[216.39.53.3]:25, delay=333, delays=331/0.02/0.78/0.59, dsn=2.0.0, status=sent (250 ok dirdel)
Feb 12 09:37:21 babylolly postfix/qmgr[15587]: E05B38383: removed


*********************************

Email invitation example:

From BabyLolly Thu Feb 12 07:31:48 2009
Return-Path:
Authentication-Results: mta159.mail.re4.yahoo.com from=babylolly.com; domainkeys=pass (ok); from=babylolly.com; dkim=pass (ok)
Received: from 67.207.149.60 (EHLO babylolly.com) (67.207.149.60)
by mta159.mail.re4.yahoo.com with SMTP; Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:37:20 -0800
Received: from babylolly.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by babylolly.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E05B38383
for ; Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:31:48 -0600 (CST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=babylolly.com; h=date:from
:to:subject:reply-to:message-id:mime-version:content-type:
content-transfer-encoding; s=selector1; bh=faGxauWu5b9xBiApTg8XA
+bbwd4=; b=r3YbYUDo6GeJQ2x0cvLZLmBHNB9f8NJohoBdY7Wpd86rV4cyQOolJ
FkfW6pvNZGQPdRDEu7XgKFFwTV4QASUhdFe1o3a6y7P3zou7JrLisVlIB0uBpG16
HakDff6pzORvbADsxYO0VnN65Yv1MuoZtRGCkmJaIcPSG4jVTeZv0E=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=babylolly.com; h=date:from:to
:subject:reply-to:message-id:mime-version:content-type:
content-transfer-encoding; q=dns; s=selector1; b=LnP26+Yhp4pOC9n
VyU55tECAkyfWNFu7hinLkn6QKx5NgwrLlsYwTMtj1NEVWZnOSxgbIQ80HWasL+y
otYp3aMxHoQxfuix9haKwGbXMewrG/5Kf2xM3j30xvoGRM+CsXB/ak/U1RPh/ipj
22T/oHrSYZKrGhx2Ul3EolUSl19c=
Received: from www.babylolly.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by babylolly.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6B79837D
for ; Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:31:48 -0600 (CST)
User-Agent: CodeIgniter
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:31:48 -0600
From: "BabyLolly"
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Chef Quix has invited you to BabyLolly!
Reply-To: "[e-mail]"
Message-ID: <4>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Length: 1129


Welcome to Babylolly!

Babylolly.com is an online babybook for parents to capture, share and
celebrate their baby's life & development with family and friends.

Chef Quix has invited you to join them on Babylolly in order to be part of
their wonderful baby's development.

Chef has also left a message for you:

Hi there,

Come and join us in celebrating our baby on Babylolly.com. We have photos,
videos, journals and many other fun features to capture our baby's every
precious moment.

The great thing is you can upload and share content yourself. You can also
just follow our baby's life and post comments or leave notes on the message
board.

We look forward to seeing you very soon!

Love,

Chef Quix

Follow the link below to join the Quix Family and their children on
Babylolly.com

http://www.babylolly.com/user/acceptinvite/73/evg81g49g62zop8wjuzg8s938

--OR go to BabyLolly.com and enter the following in the invite--

Email: [e-mail]
Key: evg81g49g62zop8wjuzg8s938

If you have problems registering, please contact us at
[e-mail]

Thanks and see you soon!

The Babylolly Team

posted by ChefQuix to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: A few things stand out in the headers that might be getting flagged on:
* Change the User-Agent
* Set MessageID to something fully formed, and with domain component.
* Set From to an email, not a name
* Set Return-Path to valid email

(You might also want to send multipart mime alternatives with a custom content for text or html users)

Failing all that, take out the URL in the mail -- could be something content based, not header based, that's firing.
posted by devbrain at 8:57 AM on February 12, 2009

Best answer: Your MX is not an open relay. You appear to be doing DKIM and SPF.
Your MX doesn't appear to be blacklisted anywhere I can find.
Your MX has a valid reverse.
This is all good.

from the url referred to in the SMTP 421 defer above:

# the message you attempted to send exhibited characteristics indicative of spam,and/or
# emails from your network have been generating complaints from Yahoo! Mail users

they then go on to recommend bulk mailers follow these guidelines:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/postmaster-02.html

at a minimum, you might want to consider implementing List-Unsubscribe headers, and implementing all
of devbrains recommendations (especially mutlipart/mime if you're sending html and plain text. or, you
know, stop sending HTML email altogether.)

Assuming none of that solves the problem, your best bet might be to simply contact Yahoo!:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/bulk.html
posted by namewithoutwords at 9:29 AM on February 12, 2009

Response by poster: Thank you, I'll check out those suggestions. I'm not sure why the message ID is malformed like that, I wonder if it's been changed when I pulled the header out of the yahoo email.

Likewise with the From - I'm going to have to email another test and see if that's actually what's coming out. But thanks for the suggestions!
posted by ChefQuix at 10:00 AM on February 12, 2009