6:22 pm admin

Yahoo Email Best Practices for bulk mail senders and postmasters for sending to Yahoo Mail
Please check with Yahoo directly to confirm that these have not changed since the time of posting  (1/8/2014)

The mission of Yahoo Mail is to deliver messages that users want to receive, and filter out messages they don't want. The simplest way to ensure that your messages are delivered is to avoid looking like a spammer.

Send email only to those that want it

• Use and honor an opt-in method of subscription for your mailing list, where subscribers actively verify their intent to receive your mailings.
• Honor the frequency of the list's intent.
• Honor unsubscribe requests quickly.

Be CAN-SPAM compliant
Regardless of where in the world you're sending your mail, make sure that you adhere to the requirements stipulated by the CAN-SPAM Act.

Use email authentication such as DKIM

• Sign all your email to help us identify forgeries.
• See DKIM.org for information about DKIM.

Consistently manage your lists
Monitor hard and soft bounces as well as inactive recipients. Persistent emails to these addresses are a surefire way to get your connections deferred.

If your messages are being blocked -- look closely at any SMTP Reply Codes our mail servers are returning and ensure you're addressing the problem:

• Don't retry 5xx messages.
• Retry 4xx messages. This is a temporary error.
• Refresh your list periodically.
  • Consider removing or sending a reconfirmation email to inactive subscribers.
  • Sending mail to users who are not reading them, or who mark them as "spam," will hurt your delivery metrics and reputation.
• Enroll in our feedback loop. If you are signing your emails with DKIM or DomainKeys, our Complaint Feedback Loop program can help you track and manage your spam complaint rates.

Segregate your mail streams by IP address and/or domain
Segmenting your mail stream that delivers marketing mail from another that sends transactional messages makes it easier for Yahoo Mail to assign each mail stream a reputation.

Check your email content

• Test your emails' visual look with image placeholders. Many users won't see images in your email by default.
• Link to domains, not IP addresses.
• Use standard ports.
• Don't include HTML forms.
• Don't include JavaScript.
• Don't include embedded objects (like flash or ActiveX).

Use a consistent 'From' header address

• Using a static From: address helps users who have set up filters to route messages to a specific folder.
• Using your domain consistently helps us and your recipients to distinguish your email from spam.

Publish reverse DNS (PTR) records for your sending IPs
Yahoo is more likely to downgrade an IP’s sending reputation if:

• There is no reverse DNS entry for your IP address.
• Your mailing IP looks like a dynamically-assigned IP instead of a static mail server.

Secure your mail servers

• Update your software with the latest security patches.
• Filter user-generated content before sending it, to prevent spammers from using your resources.
• If your servers act as "open proxies" or "relays," spammers may attempt to send their own mail from your systems.

Use common-sense settings

• While we have not published guidelines for numbers of connections you can concurrently use, we ask that you treat our resources with respect.
• The more you take, the fewer there are for others, which may force us to defer your connections.

Author: Heather Seitz

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This information has been provided by http://www.EmailDelivered.com and written by Heather Seitz. Don’t forget to sign up for the EmailDelivered Pulse newsletter for articles, tips, and recommended resources related to email marketing and email deliverability.

January 8, 2013