How Messages helps prevent spam filtering

What a spam filter does or doesn't filter can vary greatly depending on the particular spam filter used, as well as the settings the recipient has selected. There are certain characteristics of spam messages that all spam filters look for, and we work to make our Messages system filter-friendly by avoiding those characteristics.

Here are the steps we take:

1. Rather than blasting out all emails at once, messages are sent out in a paced manner (over about 5 to 10 minutes, depending upon list size). Typical spam depends upon being able to send huge numbers of emails in a very short period of time, and spam filters look for that.

2. We allow for DNS reverse-lookup on your mailings, so it is possible for recipients and service providers to look up the origins of the messages. Spam is almost always sent anonymously, which is an immediate red flag to spam filters.

3. The Return Path of your messages will always match your own "From" email address, so spam filters will not mistake your Messages for spoofed emails.

4. Our email tool strips code such as Javascript that often causes spam filters to view an email as suspicious or potentially dangerous.

5. Messages automatically manages suppressed addresses that are permanently undeliverable. This keeps your bounce rate down, which helps maintain a good sender reputation among bulk email monitoring services.

6. Messages automatically logs unsubscribe requests and prevents you from accidentally mailing to someone who previously unsubscribed from a list. This lowers the risk of a recipient becoming irritated with you and reporting you to their ISP. Spam reports weigh heavily against your sender reputation.

7. We monitor all of the major sender reputation services, such as SenderScore, for signs that you may be in danger of being blacklisted and will contact you with advice for what you need to do differently to remediate the problem.

8. We check provider blacklists daily to make sure your Messages server has not been blacklisted. In the event your Messages server does get blacklisted, we will engage in mediation with the blacklisting service and/or take other corrective actions as necessary to help you get off the blacklist as soon as possible.