how can I whitelist my IP when I'm blacklisted because of self-hosted autorespoder?

21 replies
Warriors!
- a burning question to YOU:

When people want to use their own self-hosted autoresponder - then almost everybody starts to shout: No, this is insane. You are going to be blacklisted very very quickly. And to whitelist your IP is not easy at all. So, why to bother? Why do you want all these probelms? Why to risk? - Just go with Aweber or other high-quality professional autoresponding service. It's cheap. - etc, etc, etc.

The whole majority claims & swears that it's the only truth & the only possible solution. However , in reality most of these people simply repeat what they heard from someone else, but they never researched or tried it themselves. Never

On the other hand there are also those peope who use self-hosted autoresponding services for YEARS, without problems & with a high deliverability. And they have rather big lists btw!

Moreover, they claim that to whitelist your IP address is NOT DIFFICULT as most believe.
No!!!!!! Not at all -It's a myth. M-y-t-h They say that very often to become whitelisted means to fill in some forms. And that's all. This procedure will take few hours only. And blacklisting isn't going to happen very often. To have your own autoresponder requires some details, like being on a virtual server or dedicated server, but of course not on a shared hosting, that's true. But still to whitelist yourself is not hard or impossible.

My question:
I do believe that these people know what they say, I do believe that everything is much more simple than most people claim. (because they heard it from others but never tested it themselves. And those heard from others. and so on)

So, have you personally done it? Or do you know someone who's done it successfully - please, share your experiece here! tell us! We need to destroy this misunderstanding & myth. We need this fresh air!

THANK YOU!
#blacklisted #whitelist
  • Profile picture of the author NikkiG
    It can be done and no it isn't that difficult to host your own. A few minutes on Google and you'll have everything you need to know.

    The real question is why? Using a service like Aweber is very easy, it costs some money but not a lot. If money is an issue there are other choices out there.

    Whitelisting and blacklisting is only one aspect.

    You need to check the policies of your own host, your own ISP and even then they cannot tell you how your mail will be handled by other carriers.

    Even the major autoresponder providers can have issues with deliverability.

    The services I hosted usually had a much higher failure rate.

    I'm all for busting myths but for those who are technically inclined setting all this up is going to be easy and fun.

    The majority of marketers shouldn't look at self hosting as an option simply because their are far better uses for your precious mrketing time.

    You could host your own email service, your own web sites, your own IP phone system but not doing it yourself means one less thing you have to worry about.

    My 2c.
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    • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
      when you host your own autoresponder - such as AutoResponsePlus - there are many pluses here comparing to using autoresponding services (Aweber, GR, etc etc).

      First, you own it, it's on your server.
      Next, it has more flexibility, more tracking features than Aweber , GR, etc.
      It has much more other features, &
      therefore it can be much more comfortable than GR, Aweber, etc.

      As for deliverability - if we regularly check if we are blacklisted & confirm that we are not - why then will we have a poor deliverability? -
      No way!
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      • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
        so, Warriors has anybody experience of whitelisting IPs, etc? Tell us!
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        • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
          does anybody of you use their own self-hosted autoresponder?
          - with success, high deliverability, & + for a long time?
          then how do you manage to do this?
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  • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
    Nope, not anymore. It's too easy to get shut down or sued these days!
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    • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
      Mmurtha, thank you.

      But what about all those people who successfully host their own high-quality autoresponders FOR YEARS?

      How do they do it?

      After all they are SUCCESSFUL here!
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      • Profile picture of the author marcdonovan
        I just went through this for my own site, which is an autoresponder site like Aweber.

        Like NikkiG says, it is very time-consuming to setup. You have to fill out forms for a dozen or so mail providers, once for feedback loop submission and once for whitelisting. I have the list if anyone is interested.

        You also have to process your feedback loop emails. I had to build a ton of code to process those automatically.

        In order to stay out of the spam folder, you have to use DKIM and domain keys. Setting that up on your server can be a pain. Ask me how I know.

        BTW,
        NikkiG, thanks for the advice. Check my sig.
        Signature

        1.5¢ per word article writing. Limited time offer. Check my WSO.

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        • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
          Marcdonovan! thank you for your really valuable advice! because you are the one who seems to be successful here - that's why your info is super valuable.

          I did take a look at your autoresponder in your sig. - However, your mailing list software, of course, looks very attractive. It is all free, "without any catch", with a great deliverabiltiy.... BUT
          But why do you give you it all for free then?
          Looks highly suspicious!

          No catch? - I don't believe you.
          Because if you value your time & efforts - you'd never give it all for free.
          This mailing list software was not easy for you, right?
          Probably you can say that 'free' is for your promotion? - This still does not explain anything. It doesn't look serious.
          'Free' & 'without any catch' look suspicious.
          This is my personal opinion.
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          • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
            FWIW, I've been hosting my own autoresponder for years and I've had exactly one problem with blacklisting. It had nothing to do with being self-hosted.

            It had everything to do with hosting. My host at the time assigned my new account to an open IP, which just happened to previously belong to a porn site. The IP was blacklisted, not the domain or the script. Fixing the problem was a two-step process at that time: my host changed my IP, and I filled out a form online for the site that was blacklisting me.

            For the technophobic or the folks who who just don't want to mess with it, a service like aweber is the way to go. It's just simpler. Of course, that also means you pay them every month for the service and you play by their rules, whether you agree with them or not. (If I had a dollar for every rant on the forum about aweber's confirmed opt-in policy, I could retire tomorrow.)

            One of the reasons aWeber is one of the big boys in the IM autoresponder market is the fact that they were about the first company to offer affiliates recurring commissions. Every affiliate and guru around jumped at the chance to lock in monthly residual commissions on a service with obvious utility. Every email marketing course and ebook had an affiliate link to aWeber; most still do. I know mine do...
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            • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
              JohnMcCabe!
              sure, I understand that to use Aweber or some other AR service is very convenient
              - - because you don't have to bother with whitelisting yourself!
              BUT our own self-hosted AR can be much more flexible & it is one of the reasons why some people like it!

              JohnMcCabe! Do you still self-host your autoresponder?

              If yes, then how difficult/ or how easy is it for you to whitelist your own self-hosted autoresponder?

              how cheap/ expensive/ or free is it?

              plus how often do you get blacklisted? (if ever?)

              you have a big list on your self-hosted AR? or small? How much time do you spend to have a great deliverability at your self-hosted AR?

              THANKS!
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              • Profile picture of the author deu12000
                I tried self hosting as late as early year. I've tried several times over the years to be precise. I followed tons of tutorials, these are the basic steps:

                Setup reverse DNS
                Setup SPF
                Setup DomainKeys

                I didn't even know about contacting certain sites. I thought I was free and clear after these steps. What I learned after sending out some test emails is that I ended up in the spam box at a ton of different ISPs.

                I've been on the same server for like 3 or 4 years and I still have this problem. Even responding to emails has been a problem because I get caught in all kinds of weird spam filters. I've never sent spam, I've never even sent to an opt-in list from my server and my site or IP seems to get flagged all over the place.

                I only went the paid route because sometimes I have to use Yahoo email or Gmail to get around spam blocks from my server. Paid definitely gets into a lot more inboxes than mail that goes through my server.

                I've even checked the black lists and I'm not on any of them, but my server gets rejected all over the place. I'm thinking either DomainKeys or SPF or something is setup incorrectly. Either way this thread reminded me I have to try to fix these issues because it has become a pain recently and probably made me lose money.
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                • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
                  Deu12000! thank you.But why is your experience of self-hosting is not so successful as some people have with a self-hosted autoresponder?
                  Because yes, there are such people.
                  What they do differently? ? ?
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          • Profile picture of the author marcdonovan
            Originally Posted by jfvmzcherish View Post

            No catch? - I don't believe you.
            Thanks jfvmzcherish!

            It is (was actually) donation based. I have had success in the past with this business model. A lot of people will donate - you'd be surprised. I have often earned as much as if I had charged full price. Having spent a lot of my life developing free open-source software, it was just a natural extension.

            But each market is different and based on my experience to date and advice from other warriors, I am switching to a regular paid model with under 500 customers as free, very similar to MailChimp's pricing, but much cheaper.

            Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

            One of the reasons aWeber is one of the big boys in the IM autoresponder market is the fact that they were about the first company to offer affiliates recurring commissions. Every affiliate and guru around jumped at the chance to lock in monthly residual commissions on a service with obvious utility. Every email marketing course and ebook had an affiliate link to aWeber; most still do. I know mine do...
            Good point. That is on my to-do list for my site. Just bumped up a few notches in on the list, thanks!

            If anyone needs help setting up on their own , just pm me and I can point you in the right direction.

            Some lessons learned:
            Use Exim, exim Internet Mailer it is the best. It's free, but takes some work to setup.
            Return Path operates most of the feedback loops. Here is a guide they publish on how to set them up for your host. http://www.returnpath.net/resources/...structions.pdf
            There is a list of fbl's and whitelists here: Feedback Loops - Email Marketer's Club Wiki
            Signature

            1.5¢ per word article writing. Limited time offer. Check my WSO.

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            • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
              Mrcdonovan, thank you very much!

              you shared a really great information with us!
              basing on your experience!
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      • Profile picture of the author mmurtha
        Originally Posted by jfvmzcherish View Post

        Mmurtha, thank you.

        But what about all those people who successfully host their own high-quality autoresponders FOR YEARS?

        How do they do it?

        After all they are SUCCESSFUL here!

        Not necessarily! I know some who claim they are, but I also know quite a few that are now having serious problems hosting their own autoresponders. Matter of fact there are 3 people I know right off that bat that were heavily find, and now are seeking other established services.

        The one's that are successful at running their own already made adjustments to meet the FTC guidlines.

        Btw, is there some reason you've bolded your font, and made it bigger? Lol that doesn't help your case - at least not with me.
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        • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
          Originally Posted by mmurtha View Post


          ...
          Btw, is there some reason you've bolded your font, and made it bigger? Lol that doesn't help your case - at least not with me.
          sorry, don't understand you, Mmurtha :confused::confused::confused:
          what do you mean?
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Gaskill
    I self-hosted my own AR when I first started out. I'd built my list up to about 750 at the time, then it was hacked and my list was spammed with porn. I lost about 500 of my 750 subscribers. I also got a lot of angry emails. I've used professional list hosting since.

    Another thing to be concerned with is if you try this on shared hosting, many hosts limit how many emails you can send per hour. If you're good at growing your list, a cap of 200 emails per hour would mean it would take over two days to send one email to a list of 10k. If you buy a dedicated server to avoid the cap, that will probably cost you more than a professional AR service.
    Signature

    Just when you think you've got it all figured out, someone changes the rules.

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    • Profile picture of the author jfvmzcherish
      Originally Posted by Dennis Gaskill View Post

      I self-hosted my own AR when I first started out. I'd built my list up to about 750 at the time, then it was hacked and my list was spammed with porn. I lost about 500 of my 750 subscribers. I also got a lot of angry emails. I've used professional list hosting since.
      ...
      hacked?
      How exactly did they do it?
      And was it the only major problem with your self-hosted autoreponder?
      - If yes, then could you just fix it & go on successfully using your self-hosted AR?

      thank you!
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    The only thing I've said all along is you need to do a ton of work you normally would never think about using a self hosted autoresponder.

    For example, you need to have a backup system in place to handle unsubscribes, in case the unsubscribe link in your emails suddenly decides not to function.

    You also need to understand your web hosts limits on sending emails, and get an email system with a feature called 'throttling' which allows you to set the autresponder so it only sends out 'x' emails per hour. This needs to be set at half the limit your hosts allows (usually, the limit is 500/hr, so you set yours at 250/hr).

    You also need to watch your bounces (remove non existent email addresses immediately), and get real good and cozy with the people who run the various email providers (they do get spam complaints sent to them). When these people send you spam complaints, you need to remove them from your list without question pronto!

    You also need to do email supression (which can get expensive), and possibly pony up money for email bonds (such as goodmail).

    These are all things a good autoresponder automatically handles for you, but if you can handle this yourself feel free to have at it.

    i just choose not to is all. To each his own.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by jfvmzcherish View Post

      JohnMcCabe!
      sure, I understand that to use Aweber or some other AR service is very convenient
      - - because you don't have to bother with whitelisting yourself!
      BUT our own self-hosted AR can be much more flexible & it is one of the reasons why some people like it!

      JohnMcCabe! Do you still self-host your autoresponder?

      If yes, then how difficult/ or how easy is it for you to whitelist your own self-hosted autoresponder?

      how cheap/ expensive/ or free is it?

      plus how often do you get blacklisted? (if ever?)

      you have a big list on your self-hosted AR? or small? How much time do you spend to have a great deliverability at your self-hosted AR?

      THANKS!
      In order:

      Yes, I still host my own autoresponder.

      I went through a whitelisting process for AOL years ago when I started using my own AR. Haven't worried about it since.

      Which makes it free.

      I've only been blacklisted once, and that was because the IP a host assigned me formerly was assigned to a porn site they deleted for spamming. Changed the IP, filled out a form for the blacklist org, and it was done.

      My own tendency is to build multiple smaller lists. Regarding deliverability, most of my time is spent when I'm writing the messages. I try to avoid using red flag words, and most messages go out as plain text. If I need graphics, I link to a web page.

      Processing bounces is automatic and in addition to an unsubscribe link in every message, there's a link to a support site and to a message form. When I do get the odd spam complaint, I can go back and furnish opt-in dates/IP, etc. and many of my lists have been confirmed opt-in.
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  • Profile picture of the author robertvance
    There are also services that you can use when sending emails from your own auto responder. these services help make sure you stay whitelisted and handle spam complaints with the isp's. These services are not free but if you are insisting on hosting your own autoresponder they are invaluable.

    These services only work if you are on your own server such as a dedicated server or a vps. If you are on a shared server forget about hosting your own autoresponder.

    Hope this helps.
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