A note to everyone who has their email (and website) hosted by GoDaddy – I can’t reply to your emails, since GoDaddy regards my emails as spam and they immediately bounce back to me.
I’ve tried to resolve this months-and-months long issue, but GoDaddy support simply points out that they use Spamhaus as their database to ban addresses they consider to be sources of spam emails. Spamhaus lists a block of addresses of Optonline, my Internet service provider, as being such. Optonline in turns says they can’t affect the problem.
Here I am now, caught between three (big) companies, finding it impossible to chip away at this problem. If you have emailed me and have had no response and you are hosted with GoDaddy, now you know why.
So if you are hosted with GoDaddy and want to contact me, please use an alternate email address such as a gmail, yahoo or hotmail address. Also, be aware that your own clients or potential clients might not be able to contact you because of this! And you would never know about it.
Just had to put my two cents in here as this has been my primary career for some time.
What is happening is spamhaus as blocked those addresses due to spam coming from your isp and your isp has done nothing about it. It is their responsibility to fix the issue and report to spamhaus that the issue is fixed and then spamhaus will unblock the addresses. Most likely, it “IS” the fault of your ISP just not caring enough about their customers, especially since you are paying them.
In theory, this works but its up to each company to do so.
If they don’t, then chalk them up to just bad service.
Additionally, like many other large companies, they could really care less and trying to reach a support representative that actually knows what they are doing will be near impossible.
Where you probably end up at is either where you are now or switching your own isp. Go-Daddy may not be the only place you cannot email to as well as many others use Spamhaus as well.
Wish I could help more, but just a little info as to what is going on in the behind scences.
Comment by Jeff — July 12, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
Comment by Neil — July 13, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Hello,
Hate to state the obvious, but why not just leave GoDaddy, vote with your feet. I was with GoDaddy and couldn’t get an email registered for some reason, I probably did something wrong, but it was hard. In the end it was easier to move my domain to Bluehost, which hosts my blog. Didn’t cost me anything and got everything working right away
G
Comment by Gareth Robins — July 14, 2009 @ 4:18 am
Comment by Neil — July 14, 2009 @ 2:21 pm
Hi Neil,
Instead of having to use your iPhone, why not set up and use a Yahoo or Hotmail e-mail account solely for the purpose of contacting your customers under difficult circumstances?
You can then get in touch with your customer, explain the problem and ask them to reply to your normal e-mail address or phone you with alternative contact details.
Because they are replying to your normal e-mail address or phoning you they will know it is a genuine request.
Kind regards,
David
Comment by David — July 15, 2009 @ 1:41 am
Comment by Neil — July 19, 2009 @ 2:46 pm
Neil,
Are you sending mail as planetneil.com through optonline?
Rob
Comment by Rob — July 22, 2009 @ 10:21 pm
Comment by Neil — July 22, 2009 @ 11:27 pm
What about not using the optonline outgoing mail server, but the bluehost one instead? (there’s an outgoing Mail Server (SSL) on port 465).
You can find info in the [email]-[Email Accounts]-[configure mail client] section of http://www.planetneil.com/securecontrolpanel
Enjoying your site a lot!
Comment by Jasper — July 23, 2009 @ 8:28 am
Comment by Neil — July 30, 2009 @ 3:04 am
Hey Neil,
What’s most likely happening is your emails are given a spam score with multiple filters, and both of those issues hurt your score to the point that some of your email is dropped (one or the other might get through). The solution is to get off those lists, period. Servers rarely get on those lists for no reason, and a competent admin is needed to get them off.
While I sympathize with you, understand that dealing with the onslaught of spam and downright malicious user without services like Spamhaus\SORBS is impossible. Servers for the companies I work for would be overwhelmed in a matter of weeks if we didn’t filter. Our second level spam filters would be unmanageable, we simply must completely drop emails with a high enough spam score. Likewise, our websites would be filled with drone users, prying for ways to spam comments sections, etc.
A properly configured email server will fix these issues permanantly. Dealing with your clients ISP (GoDaddy today, a million others tomorrow) is a problem you will never fully resolve, and since you aren’t a paying customer, they won’t have resources to help much. If you must deal with GoDaddy, try to enlist a client to contact them.
If your email host isn’t solving this issue, leave and send them a very clear explanation for taking your business elsewhere. Same with your webhost and ISP. Using your ISPs email servers is generally a bad idea, always use your email hosts secure SMTP servers if possible. This way, the submitting IP (your bad ISP) shouldn’t even come into play.
Comment by Glenn Pratt — August 3, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
PS Bluehost is listed on two different spam databases, that’s a problem in my opinion. There is generally a reason for this, clients are using thier hosted web applications to spam, and that’s very hard to police on shared servers. Many hosts have started blocking webservers from directly sending mail because it’s a massive liability (Instead, web applications must authenticate with a seperate email server, this is a good thing!).
Comment by Glenn Pratt — August 3, 2009 @ 2:32 pm
Comment by Neil — August 4, 2009 @ 12:25 am