Having Problems Getting Emails
Delivered? Here's The Solution...
Introduction
Have you ever had a friend send you an email but you didn't
receive it? Yip, I thought so.
Email deliverability problems are something of an unwelcome
inconvenience for most people...and a major headache for large
companies like MP3 Backing Trax who send out hundreds of emails
to customers every day containing download links for their backing
tracks.
So why do some emails get through to you while others don't?
Well, it's all down to a thing your email provider does called
filtering.
All email service providers, including yours, filter
their customers mail before delivering it to them (if you didn't
know this then I apologize for being the bearer of this shocking
news but you DO need to know that your email provider is doing
this).
One case in point was a customer called Mark who contacted me
to say he was having problems. The first thing I noticed was
that his email address was a BT Internet address.
IMMEDIATELY that told me what the problem was, and I knew exactly
how to fix it for him!
You see, BT Internets mail service
was taken over by Yahoo mail a while back...and Yahoo are notorious
for running VERY aggressive email filters.
For those of you reading this who
are perhaps unfamiliar with the workings of email filters, email
filtering is basically a process where your email service provider
scans every email that people send to you. They do this BEFORE
they pass the email through to you. This lets them decide whether
the email is legitimate mail or spam. If they think you want to
receive the email, they deliver it to you. If they think it's
spam and you don't want to receive it, they block you from receiving
it.
Already you can see the problem
this poses for all of us humble email users - service providers
like Yahoo/BTInternet act as judge and jury on what YOU should
be allowed to receive to YOUR email!
It's still uncertain whether they
should legally be allowed to do this (no-one as far as I know
has challenged BT, Yahoo or anyone else in the courts over this
issue), so the cold hard facts of the matter is that you just
have to accept that they filter your emails - like it or lump
it.
Their argument is that if they didn't filter your mail, junk email
would clog up the email system and it would grind to a halt -
a fair point it must be admitted.
Yahoo email users of old already
know that Yahoo filter their mail. They know that Yahoo run a
very poor email filtering system - Yahoo email filters are so
aggressive it's not uncommon for job offers, important communications
from your bank etc to get "eaten" by the Yahoo filters
and never get to you. Yahoo users know and accept this. They have
had to put up with this poor service from Yahoo for years and
they can't complain...because Yahoo email is free.
BUT, and here's the rub...
Users of BT Internet (who were
transferred over to Yahoo whether they wanted to be or not), actually
PAY for their email service...and now it's being
handled by Yahoo whether they like it or not (oh dear)!
This brings up TWO very important
issues.
First, if BT Internet users are
paying for their email service, they should not
have to put up with the aggressive filters Yahoo place on their
email account. For example, if I send you an email, you should
expect and demand that Yahoo/BTInternet deliver it to you - that's
what you're paying them for.
Second, up until the Yahoo takeover,
BT Internet users had little or no problems with their email service.
Existing BT customers were used to having ALL their emails delivered
to their inbox (to Outlook Express or whatever). But now, all
of a sudden, they have to go to the Yahoo/BTInternet website every
day just to "fish out" all those legitimate emails that
the new email provider Yahoo have filtered and treated as spam!
The problem for existing BT Internet
users who have been with the service for years is:
a) Many don't realise Yahoo have
taken over their email...
b) Most have no idea that they
actually have a mail box with a bunch of filtered emails sitting
on Yahoo's server!
All this spells disaster for BT
Internet customers and frankly I'm surprised that BT and Yahoo
are still getting away with treating their customers like this.
Mind you, when I first started
MP3 Backing Trax last century(!) I originally hosted our backing
tracks server with BT. Needless to say I quickly sacked them.
I found that they were not only completely innefficient, I also
found them to be a very arrogant company who seem to be under
some crazy egotistical delusion that everyone in the UK needs
them. Well I didn't need them...and I promptly moved my servers
to another company where they reside to this day. Goodbye BT!
So, what can you do if you find
that Yahoo/BT Internet or indeed any other email provider you
use are filtering your emails and not delivering them to you?
Simple...find another email
provider.
At the time of writing this article
Googles Gmail has been getting good reviews regarding how well
they balance filtering spam and delivering legitimate emails to
their customers.
An even better solution though
is to register
your own domain name. Email comes as standard with all domain
names you register, so if for example you register yourname.com,
then you can have an email address like you@yourname.com.
It looks more professional than any old hotmail, yahoo or gmail
address, and most importantly, it allows YOU to
control the email filters yourself.
Check below to see if your name is available (e.g. yourname.co.uk).
If you do continue to use Yahoo/BT
Internet or any other email provider who plague you with deliverability
problems and you feel your stuck with them (perhaps you have a
home telephone/TV/internet package), then I've written a guide
on how to retrieve most of the emails your service provider may
filter out at http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/whitelist.htm.
It still won't stop them blocking
some of the legitimate emails you really wanted to receive, but
it will help a few others that would normally get
"eaten" get delivered to you
Article Written by Kenny Campbell
(This article cannot be reproduced without express
permission)
© www.mp3backingtrax.com
(all rights reserved)
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