Page History

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• General Guidelines – These guidelines can be useful if you haven't yet sent out your email(s), and want to keep the scores low (or negative) to avoid false-positive problems.
• Fixing FPs – Your email was flagged as a spam – how to avoid this next time
• Newsletter Aids – Your newsletter is confirmed opt-in / double opt-in, never spams, and you want to gain some negative (i.e. NOT spam) scoring traits.
• Other Resources – Where else can you look for guidance?

General Guidelines

These guidelines can be useful if you haven't yet sent out your email(s), and want to keep the scores low (or negative) to avoid false-positive problems.

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Tip: Use normal conversational language, be sure not to use excessive spacing and or capitalization on your subject.unmigrated-wiki-markup

*Tip*: Be open and honest and plain in your emails. If you try to hide things, or try to use tricks to bypass spam filters, you'll look like a spammer and you'll be treated like a spammer. The statistics for use of these various \[http://www.college-paper.org|college paper\] techniques show that it occurs far more frequently in spam mail than non-spam, and the rules reflect that.

Do not use "cute" spellings, Don't S.P.A.C.E out your words, don't put str@nge |etters 0r characters into your emails.unmigrated-wiki-markup

*Tip*: If you're using HTML emails, use high quality HTML emails. Don't use tools which generate horrendous HTML (example: MS Word). They often leave signs behind (like empty tags, eg: <B></B>) which are generally found in spam. Make sure your HTML is valid (run it through a decent validator). Unbalanced tags and invalid tags will also flag an email as spam. If you use a title, make sure the title is meaningful like what a \[http://www.college-paper.org|college paper writer\] used to do -- the default titles generated by HTML tools are often used as meaningful – the default titles generated by HTML tools are often used as spamsign.

Tip: If you're using HTML emails, do not use invisible text within those emails. Make sure your text colors and sizes are distinct enough and large enough to read. Invisible text is often identified as a sign of spam.

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• Return Path ( http://www.returnpath.net/ )
  Return Path’s Sender Score Certified is an email accreditation program (or "whitelist") with strict standards for both infrastructure and practices. Return Path also operates the Sender Score Safelist, with somewhat different criteria.
  Given that, as a result, we can count on mails from these programs being non-spam, we're happy to give it "bonus points" and allow it through filters.
• dnswl.org
  DNSWL.org provides a Whitelist of known legitimate email servers to reduce the chances of false positives while spam filtering.

Please report any spam that is given bonus points for either of these services to the respective service.

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• HashCash ( http://hashcash.org/ )
  See http://hashcash.org/faq and http://hashcash.org/draft-hashcash.txt.
  This is a technological solution, while Bonded Sender is an economic solution and Habeas is a legal solution. Hashcash may not be appropriate for large mailing lists, as it requires substantial computational power to send each email.
  whitelist.cf ( http://www.rulesemporium.com/rules.htm#whitelist )
  SARE maintains a family of whitelist.cf rules config files which will apply a USER_IN_WHITELIST score to your newsletter if you qualify. Though these initially apply only to systems which retrieve the custom SARE files, these will feed eventually to the SA distribution set, and the USER_IN_DEF_WHITELIST rule.
  To qualify:
• Your newsletter needs to be From a consistent and recognizable address.
Your newsletter needs to be emailed from a reliable and recognizable server, whose domain name can be validated by systems receiving the email, and must pass from that server to the recipient system.Your newsletter must be double opt-in / confirmed opt-in, and must not be a subject of spam complaints.
• Your domain must not be a subject of spam complaints.
  

Other Resources

Where else can you look for guidance?

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• Frugal Marketing: That's not Spam, That's My Newsletter! http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/notspamnews.shtml
• SpamCon Foundation: Best practices for marketers: http://www.spamcon.org/directories/best-practices.shtml
• Bulk e-mail HOWTO: http://spam.abuse.net/marketerhelp/bulk-howto.shtml
  

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