Mail Forms and Shared Hosting
If you’ve ever had to deal with sending mail from a shared host you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s a pain in the ass!
Scenario:
In your shared-hosting environment all mail is sent to your host’s mail server - as set in your DNS setup(i.e. mail.my-hosts-domain.com.au). And in all of your mail scripts, being the cautious developer you are, you have specified the return-path for (bounced emails) to a mailbox on your domain (webmaster@mydomain.com.au). Unfortunately it appears some of your users aren’t receiving your mail, while some are - but it’s turning up in their junk folder labelled as spam.
The Low-Down:
Apart from the obvious reasons, such as being blacklisted by an ISP/ host, or the very user, it’s quite possible your mail has been failing your host’s Sender Framework Policy (SFP).
Essentially, the SPF specifies who is authorized to send mail for the sender’s domain. So if there’s no MX record (domain mail server id) for your domain within the hosts very own DNS - which is often the case in shared hosting - your outgoing mail will be flagged (Received-SPF header:…”failed”) and in-turn be filtered as spam! I should note though, not all spam filters check for SFP validility. Currently I know Gmail does it, and although it is an annoyance at the best of times, SFP prevents spammers from spoofing mail addresses.
So what are the options?
In terms of mail turning up as junk mail, failed SFP may not be your only problem as spam filters check for a variety of other things too. But if your sure everything is the way it should be check your mail headers, there’s plenty of information to be found. For SFP issues look for the presence of the “Received-SFP:….” header. If it says “failed”, you’ve got major problems, on the other hand if it says “neutral” it’s not so bad, depending on the severity of the spam filter your encountering “neutral” flagged mail should come through. For “failed” you could try appending the hosts domain name
me@my-domain.my-hosts-domain.com.auOtherwise the next best step is to contact your host and enquire as to whether there is an MX Record for your domain.
If anyone has further comments on successfully sending mail from a shared hosting environment please let us know!
