SPF .. again

Ok .. ok .. I know it is a bug-bear of mine at present but a 15% rise in AOL traffic is nothing to sneeze at. And, as this rise coincided with the SPF record change, I thought bingo. But … the rise is only present on 3 of the 4 sites. Typically, the largest AOL subscriber base has seen it’s 3rd week on week decrease. Ideas .. none. I really hate AOL!

SPF records

Darn .. Monday morning and I find out that the SPF domain record changes have only just propagated.   This accounts for why the Thursday and Friday daily emails did not deliver the expected rise in AOL traffic.   To be honest, I am a bit sceptical about the whole SPF business (and other mail approval schemes) but it is a ticked box and at least is one less reason to worry.

Update : Well, looks like they are working. Email bounces we experienced last week are no longer arriving back from the likes of Hotmail. Woooo !!

SPF … its magic I tell you

Ok, finally got round to looking at why the 1000’s of AOL readers on our mailing lists don’t always receive their daily or weekly emails. Aside from some truly abhorrent anti-spam policies, it appears AOL likes you to have SPF records for each sending domain. So, after a few quick checks at dnsstuff.com I determined, just as I thought, we had no such entry against any of the domains.

For the terminally DNS challenged like me, a Sender Policy Framework is simply way for the receiving email system to verify that the email is being sent from a server authorised to do so. And it is a simple one line update to each domain record.  You can see the effects from different IPs from here : SPF Validation

A few ping-pong emails to our ISPs support desk later, and we have 5 brand spanking new SPF records. I remain to be convinced this will help get through the AOL eye of a needle but – ho hum – can’t but help can it.

As for other reasons – work your way though AOLs guide here. [grumble]