Managed Wordpress Emails Going To Spam

[MarkV83]

Hi

I chose to have a managed wordpress site by GD for simplicity sake. However I'm regretting this decision

Apparently GD don't allow external Smtp connections to places like O365 where I have SPF, Dkim and Dmarc setup and mail is treated as legitimate. I have to use their own relay server instead.

I'm fine with this if the emails are treated as legitimate. However they're not. They go to spam filters. Message headers fail dkim, and spf checks

I have put this in my spf record include:spf.em.secureserver.net however after 3 days of waiting it still goes to spam and spf lookup fails on the message header.

Its very important that mails go to customer I boxes as they're order emails and other contact.

I shouldve probably chosen a different host but I really don't want to be migrating this site to a Pro hosting package if I can help it.

How can I get it so the mails aren't treated as spam?

[Zulfiqar · Accepted solution]

Hello MarkV83, I hope you are well. If you are using your GoDaddy email with an Email Marketing Service to send out mass emails to many recipients, there may be an additional DNS setting called an SPF record that can resolve the issue. Contact your Email Marketing provider (IE, GoDaddy, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, etc.) for this setting and enter into your domain's DNS. Here's some more information on SPF records:  

https://www.godaddy.com/help/what-is-an-spf-record-24605  

*GoDaddy's SPF records are: 

• Workspace: v=spf1 mx include:secureserver.net -all
• Office365: v=spf1 a mx ptr include:secureserver.net ~all
• cPanel: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

Also, you can use the link below to avoid spam filters based on the email content and recipient list as well as take a look at the CAN-SPAM Act guidelines.  

• https://www.godaddy.com/help/avoiding-email-inbox-spam-filters-15820  
• https://www.godaddy.com/help/can-spam-act-guidelines-4599 

Since there are various reasons why a message is recognized as SPAM, it's best to contact GoDaddy 24/7 support team so they can access your account, see specifically how you use your email and assist you further. Please note as well that if you are using any other email provider other than GoDaddy, you will want to contact their support for further assistance. 

[PL281]

@MarkV83 

I have over 200 sites on the Managed WordPress Platform - generally I do not have issues with emails going to spam, however occasionally I will come across one site (even on a VPS) due to the domain settings that do.

In cases like this I use AWS Simple Email Service (SES) it's $0.10/1000 emails sent - And there is a free WordPress plugin called WP Offload SES Lite

The biggest thing I needed to do was authenticate either the domain or the email which WordPress was send the emails as. That solved my problem in "30 seconds" once the AWS account was setup and out of sandbox mode.

I will also share that I have not found a specific "this setup with this provider" causes the issue it's just happen stance

[MarkV83]

Hi

Thanks both for your replies. Sadly Amazon SES isn't suitable because godaddy block outbound smtp connections and force you to use their relay server with managed wordpress.

In the end the suggested spf record worked along with forcing the reply to path in the message header. This seemed to have resolved it.

Thanks for your help both!

[PL281]

@MarkV83 

Glad it is working - Whenever I've used SES I've always used the API connection vs the SMTP connection and it works great just as an FYI