Analysing email header from hotmail for message marked as spam

Question

I have a simple PHP script which generates a single email to a user on my site. For some reason, most messages are getting sent to user's spam folders. I set up a hotmail account to test this, and I'm now trying to analyse the header to check why it is getting added to the spam folder.

The header I am getting is included below. There doesn't appear to be any information relating to spam (i.e. spamassassin). I'm wondering if anyone can detect what the issue might be?

From: Marvelous Monthly Mix Up <info@****.com>
To: ****@hotmail.com
Subject: Welcome to the Marvelous Monthly Mix Up
Message-ID: <COL0-MC2-F40nkB4ltF00b5209d@COL0-MC2-F40.Col0.hotmail.com>

Everything looks dandy, apart from the PHP `X-AntiAbuse` headers which, statistically speaking, are a weak spam indicator, and the lack of a Message-Id header (Hotmail had to add one). Try to fix the message contents instead. — tripleee, Jul 23 '12 at 06:53
@tripleee Thanks. Is there a way of adding a message-id header? The message contents on the test email I am sending is simply: subject: Test Subject, message body: Test message, so I don't think it's the content of the email. Running a test on the email using Brandon Checketts service returned: SpamAssassin Score: 1.274 Message is NOT marked as spam Points breakdown: 1.3 RDNS_NONE Delivered to internal network by a host with no rDNS. I have asked my host to set up RDNS in case this helps. — Nick, Jul 23 '12 at 11:24
@tripleee **UDPATE**: Adding an extra header "Nick" => "My Test" lead to mail being received OK in Hotmail and Yahoo, though not in GMail. I got this idea from [this thread](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4875067/send-message-through-smtp-with-guarantee-id). Progress is being made — Nick, Jul 23 '12 at 11:43

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 23 '12 at 02:03

1

The only way to truly prevent email from being marked as spam is to have your users create a filter for your email or to add you to their contacts list.

Included below are two resources that Google provides for emails that are marked as spam:

You can also try running an emailtest to check your content.

If you are using shared hosting then its possible that the IP address that your SMTP uses has been blacklisted. This can still happen if you're not on shared hosting but its more likely since you have a wide array of users from all areas.

"If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a duck." Try to make sure that you have good content quality and you should be able to do a search for assistance there.

answered Jul 23 '12 at 02:03

Robert

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Thanks. I used the test service (Brandon Checketts) to test the emails that are getting sent out and this returned the following: SpamAssassin Score: 1.274 Message is NOT marked as spam Points breakdown: 1.3 RDNS_NONE Delivered to internal network by a host with no rDNS. I have asked my host to set up RDNS in case this helps. The test also suggested there was no DomainKeys signature or SPF record, even though I have set these up in cPanel. I don't want users to have to set up a filter, as the emails are mostly for new users. I don't think the IP address my SMTP uses is blacklisted. – Nick Jul 23 '12 at 11:20
**UDPATE**: Adding an extra header "Nick" => "My Test" lead to mail being received OK in Hotmail and Yahoo, though not in GMail. I got this idea from [this thread](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4875067/send-message-through-smtp-with-guarantee-id). Progress is being made – Nick Jul 23 '12 at 11:42
I marked your answer as correct as it started me on a path that led in all sorts of weird and not so wonderful directions. In the end enabling SPF and DKIM on my server, and then checking my SpamAssassin score and taking steps to lower this fixed the issue. Thanks – Nick Jul 24 '12 at 22:23

Analysing email header from hotmail for message marked as spam

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