An update to my email below...
My understanding of what changed recently with the big email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) is that they've started enforcing the email protocol called DMARC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC). Any domain name that doesn't have a DMARC record gets "penalised" - their emails go to spam, regardless of the sender, the sending server, or the content of the email! Yes, that's heavy-handed, but that's their strategy for combatting spam worldwide - force all the legitimate senders of the world to start using DMARC.
Anyway, I've spent a few hours today adding a DMARC record to EVERY client we have (that's you!). So hopefully that will improve the emails-going-to-spam situation.
Many of you have reported to me, in the last 24 hours, that even emails from your own special email addresses (e.g. president@mygroup.com) are going to spam. This DMARC change should fix that problem. As for emails from members that don't have special email addresses - delivery of these MAY be improved by this latest change.
I'm still investigating more options...
In harmony,
Mark.
From: Mark Virtue - HarmonySite <mark@harmonysite.com>
Sent: Monday, 23 August 2021 12:10pm
To: 'announcements@harmonysite.net' <announcements@harmonysite.net>
Subject: Emails going to junk folders
Dear HarmonySite Administrator,
There have been many (MANY) reports lately of emails sent through your HarmonySite ending up in the recipients' junk folders. So I thought it a good idea to appraise everyone of the situation...
It would appear that the big email providers (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) have been tightening up their spam filters lately. This is a problem for systems like ours, as I'll explain below. In fact, it's ALWAYS been a problem, and we here at HarmonySite have been adjusting our email-sending practices constantly over the years to fit into the ever-changing rules.
Here's what's going on (this was recently posted by me in the Facebook HarmonySite Users Group)...
The main reason this happens is: An email gets sent via the website, or via the mailing lists. The sender is one of your members, from their own personal email address being something like fred@yahoo.com. The mail servers of all the recipients look at the sender's address, and notice that it's "yahoo.com". Then they notice that it's coming from the HarmonySite server, not the Yahoo server. That is deemed suspicious by the mail providers, so the emails end up in spam folders. Sometimes the email is rejected outright (if, for example, the recipient mail server is also Yahoo - they KNOW the email didn't come from them).
The only way to avoid this is to send every email from an email address that ends in your group's domain name. For example, if your group's website is www.mygroup.com, then the email would need to be sent from something@mygroup.com. You CAN do that on the "Send Email" page of your HarmonySite, but only if the sender holds a position, and the position has a mygroup.com email address. If you're sending from your own email program, you only have that option if your mygroup.com email address is a "POP mailbox", not a forwarder.
For the technically minded of you: We're actually following all the protocols. The emails sent out always have a "from" email address is a "mygroup.com" address, usually noreply@mygroup.com (or if it's a mailing list, members-bounces@mygroup.com). The REPLY-TO address of the email is set to fred@yahoo.com. That is SUPPOSED to be the right way to do things. But lately the big mail providers have been moving the goalposts, and ignoring the "from" part of the email and focussing on the "reply-to" part. Very frustrating!
The big email providers don't really care that huge numbers of legitimate emails are going to spam. All they care about is keeping ACTUAL spam out of their users' Inboxes. They're overzealous about that issue. Systems like ours (HarmonySite) suffer for that.
So there's no easy solution here. You REALLY need to educate your members to check their spam folders regularly - and not just in their own email program, but also in their mail provider's webmail system (e.g. www.gmail.com, or https://mail.yahoo.com, etc.).
I will continue to investigate solutions to this problem, such as DMARC. Suggestions are welcome...
In harmony,
In harmony,
Mark Virtue
HarmonySite
Australia
+61 2 8005 4277 (Australian number)
In North America, call: 1-415-651-7009 (San Francisco number)
Skype name: mvirtue
