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Why can't I get my e-mail newsletters?

Posted By : of Data Doctors on December 20, 2007

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Thanks so much for ALL you teach us -- it's wonderful! However, I have not received (your) weekly newsletter since July 2007. I have checked online and (it says) I am a member and it IS checked that I should get your weekly letters.

-Glena

This question was answered on December 20, 2007. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.


The sheer volume of junk e-mail messages that are in circulation has created a problem that is bigger than the nuisance of unwanted messages: the automated filtering of wanted messages.

It’s not a surprise that more and more of our desired messages are being blocked or filtered as the spam problem increases.

A recent check of our corporate mail server showed that 94% of the messages coming in were marked as spam, another 2% were marked as potential spam (but let through) and only 4% was perceived to be legitimate e-mail (which is consistent with what many others are reporting.)

Those of use that only send newsletters to those that are requesting it follow all of the guidelines to reduce the chances of being labeled a spammer, but despite our best efforts, it’s an uphill battle.

When you sign up for a legitimate newsletter, you must generally input your e-mail address into a form and then validate an e-mail message that confirms that you want to be added (this is often referred to as a “double opt-in” procedure.)

Despite all of this, your e-mail program or more commonly your e-mail service provider will automatically mark certain “bulk” messages as spam and keep them from ever hitting your e-mail account at all.

Any message that is sent to more than a handful of users on any given system is generally marked as a bulk message, which is also a common sign of spam messages

Depending upon the policies of the e-mail provider, this could result in everything from a redirected message (look in your spam and bulk mail folders) to a message never getting past this first unsophisticated filtering method.

If you find that the newsletter is getting through to your account but it is being placed in the spam or bulk folder, you should be able to add the newsletters address to your address book or the safe sender list.

Unfortunately, e-mail service providers have to deal with such a large volume of junk, it’s is easier for them to summarily kill as much of the stuff before the user is brought into the picture.

This means, in many cases, you will never get the chance to mark the sender as being safe because you are never given the chance to receive the message.

In other words, your service provider has decided to kill all messages coming from whoever is sending out the newsletter without asking you if you want it.

In some cases you can send them a request to allow the newsletter through, but most will deny that they are doing anything to filter the newsletters because they can’t deal with the sheer volume of these types of requests.

If you can’t find the newsletters in any of the junk or bulk folders and your service provider is not willing to ensure that the message will be let through, you best option is to sign up for a free-mail account and subscribe from that address

My favorite is Gmail from Google, because it’s easy to combine your existing mail with the new Gmail address into one interface.

The other big advantage to using a Gmail account for all your newsletters as well as other less critical messages is that when the account starts to get overrun with junk, you can simply stop using it and create a new account to start over without impacting your primary account!

About the author

of Data Doctors on December 20, 2007

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