Hi Folks; I have a question that's not necessarily Exchange related - but I'm hoping someone can give advice on how to solve my email problems. I run a website with an on-line forum that requires users to register via email. This is done to ensure no posting of garbage takes place :-) I never send spam, my current snmp mail server won't relay - and did I mention that I don't send spam? OK the problem is this. At least 100 registration emails don't go through each month as well as topic update notifications. This is starting to annoy the people who use my forums. I need to get a much higher percentage of the mail through. The reason a portion is not going through is because; 1) My ISP has assigned me static business IP addresses that are listed as dynamic by many SPAM lists. 2) My ISP's IP address sets have aribtrarily blacklisted by SPEWS. The entire set and I think it's several million IP addresses! SPEWS just aribitrarily listed every address atrtibuted to my ISP. 3) My ISP's solution to this is not to contact SPEWS - it's to provide a private mail server for their business clients 4) The problem with this solution is that their mail server is a slug, mail delivery seems to que until the cows come home and for whatever reason (the IP of that server is NOT blacklisted) mail delivery seems haphazard at best with a lot of the mail not arriving. As a result, running my own SNMP server is lightning fast - mail deivery is instant but a few domains won't receiver mail - either because the IP's are blacklisted or because the IP's are supposed to be dynamic. I guess what I need is 2 virgin IP address sets that have never seen use on the Internet :-) My ISP cannot give me IP's outside of what's allotted. They are large and I assume their network is laid out specifically one way and they don't want to mess with it. How can I get my mail through? I work hard to make my site/forums a great resource for people - for free. I get a small amount of advertising revenue for tasteful ads that offsets the WAN link costs and makes payments on the credit line that paid for the servers. I want my site to grow - it is and I'm working hard to do it. But if my mail doesn't go through it stifles the growth of my site - a lot. So I don't get as good a return on my efforts. I don't send spam. Every once in a while I send out a 'mass' email to all my members letting them know what's new. They can opt out with a couple of mouse clicks. I'm not deceptive, manipulative or a nut. When I do a mass email (I've only done 3 in 4 years) I'm sending 6,000 emails. On a typical day my forums probably send 100 emails - all of them either registration validations or topic update notifications. They are all legit emails. How can I get it down to the point where all email goes through with the exception of people that have inadvertantly set their Spam filters so restrictive that they couldn't get mail if their life depended on it? BTW, I am currently using IIS5's SMTP server although I do have an Exchange 2000 server on the backburner that I'm going to fire up as soon as I get a chance. Best & Thanks! Marvin
In news:Ocj3FoqNGHA.3408@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl, Marvin Miller typed: > Hi Folks; > > I have a question that's not necessarily Exchange related - but I'm > hoping someone can give advice on how to solve my email problems. > > I run a website with an on-line forum that requires users to register > via email. This is done to ensure no posting of garbage takes place > :-) I never send spam, my current snmp mail server won't relay - and > did I mention that I don't send spam? > > OK the problem is this. At least 100 registration emails don't go > through each month as well as topic update notifications. This is > starting to annoy the people who use my forums. I need to get a much > higher percentage of the mail through. > > The reason a portion is not going through is because; > > 1) My ISP has assigned me static business IP addresses that are > listed as dynamic by many SPAM lists. > 2) My ISP's IP address sets have aribtrarily blacklisted by SPEWS. The > entire set and I think it's several million IP addresses! SPEWS just > aribitrarily listed every address atrtibuted to my ISP. > 3) My ISP's solution to this is not to contact SPEWS - it's to > provide a private mail server for their business clients > 4) The problem with this solution is that their mail server is a > slug, mail delivery seems to que until the cows come home and for > whatever reason (the IP of that server is NOT blacklisted) mail > delivery seems haphazard at best with a lot of the mail not arriving. > > As a result, running my own SNMP server is lightning fast - mail > deivery is instant but a few domains won't receiver mail - either > because the IP's are blacklisted or because the IP's are supposed to > be dynamic. > > I guess what I need is 2 virgin IP address sets that have never seen > use on the Internet :-) My ISP cannot give me IP's outside of what's > allotted. They are large and I assume their network is laid out > specifically one way and they don't want to mess with it. > > How can I get my mail through? I work hard to make my site/forums a > great resource for people - for free. I get a small amount of > advertising revenue for tasteful ads that offsets the WAN link costs > and makes payments on the credit line that paid for the servers. I > want my site to grow - it is and I'm working hard to do it. But if my > mail doesn't go through it stifles the growth of my site - a lot. So > I don't get as good a return on my efforts. > > I don't send spam. Every once in a while I send out a 'mass' email to > all my members letting them know what's new. They can opt out with a > couple of mouse clicks. I'm not deceptive, manipulative or a nut. > When I do a mass email (I've only done 3 in 4 years) I'm sending > 6,000 emails. On a typical day my forums probably send 100 emails - > all of them either registration validations or topic update > notifications. They are all legit emails. > > How can I get it down to the point where all email goes through with > the exception of people that have inadvertantly set their Spam > filters so restrictive that they couldn't get mail if their life > depended on it? > > BTW, I am currently using IIS5's SMTP server although I do have an > Exchange 2000 server on the backburner that I'm going to fire up as > soon as I get a chance. > > Best & Thanks! > Marvin Send your Internet mail out through another SMTP server - your ISP's, or something like MailHop Outbound at www.dyndns.org.
