Transcript

00:00 here we go boom hey Greg how's it going
00:15 bud good welcome back
00:17 yes welcome back actually you know what
00:21 I mean we're recording this right after
00:23 the previous episode but I one thing I
00:25 forgot to talk about actually is never
00:26 going to win a minute or so don't let me
00:29 knock on people's heads you know but
00:34 yeah I I forgot to talk about this we
00:36 get a little bit banter I am I'm going
00:38 to Vegas on Saturday yeah yeah baby
00:43 going to Vegas for a conference and for
00:46 any anniversary same thing how about a
00:48 win for that like there was no
00:50 conference I wanted to go that was on
00:51 our anniversary in Vegas and like honey
00:54 want to go to Vegas for anniversary and
00:56 I can go to a conference and she said
00:58 yes okay first off conference and and
01:02 university are not the same thing did
01:07 you what did you sell first the
01:09 conference or the anniversary
01:11 I sold Vegas so it was Vegas I said okay
01:15 yes okay and you just said you just
01:18 trailed it off with by the way there's
01:20 also a conference I'll be attending that
01:21 it's gonna consume all the days that I'm
01:23 there or did you like say like a day
01:26 before the conference and we're staying
01:27 two days after the conference so you
01:30 know it's not like all the time and on
01:32 top of that her her sisters are coming
01:35 to so while I'm at the conference her
01:37 sisters are gonna be there to keep her
01:39 company
01:51 okay good luck the cars I ordered to I
01:55 posted them on Instagram the other day
01:58 yeah we do order those from muqaam
02:02 pretty nice stuff yep
02:03 yeah I wait move yeah they're super
02:05 thick you know I got the round corners
02:07 I'll be honest I'm not sure next time if
02:09 I ever ordered business cards again I'm
02:11 not sure I'll get the round corners
02:13 yeah I don't care don't care for the
02:15 round corners yeah I thought I was gonna
02:16 like them cuz they I thought they'd be
02:18 different but I don't know I'm not huge
02:20 fan of it but they're nice if we were
02:24 gonna whip out whip it out and you know
02:26 compare I was I was I was setting them
02:31 off for that jaws I was I was I was
02:33 hitting you up it was sitting business
02:37 courage a video chat and folks we have
02:45 not been drinking we are not in Vegas
02:50 yes Oh Big Joe is there in mind yes
02:55 exactly yeah I've already left no I I
03:00 what I do with my business cards is I
03:02 have I have my chili dog logo in
03:04 different colors so every business card
03:07 was a different color of the chili dog
03:09 logo okay yeah that's kind of like it's
03:12 a and it's kind of like a card deck it's
03:14 kind of nice I like it cool yeah my ones
03:17 before this basically I had I three
03:20 different kinds I had one they had my
03:22 tool box on it and then I had very stiff
03:25 background colors and then I had one
03:26 where is a little gaudy now that I see
03:29 it like my picture was the entire back
03:31 of a card I and I look at it was like
03:33 wow that was really cheesy but actually
03:36 I got a treat for Greg not not all of
03:38 you are gonna see this one but I got you
03:39 Greg you're gonna get a kick out of this
03:40 Oh God
03:44 Joe you haven't prepared me for this so
03:48 I was cleaning my office recently and I
03:50 find my old interest cards from when I
03:52 was doing a real estate check that out
03:54 Oh God Oh God well I'll say the new ones
04:01 that are proven yeah
04:03 and for those listening Joe had a lot
04:06 less facial hair yes yes about today not
04:14 jinx I said it first
04:17 yeah but you win the spot for once I won
04:20 the spot okay so today Greg we are gonna
04:22 be talking about email deliverability
04:25 and what does that mean that basically
04:28 means like when you know you're using
04:31 either like an email service like
04:34 chillydog Hosting's new awesome
04:36 newsletter service or if you're just
04:38 sending out email from like a form from
04:42 your website you know how can we ensure
04:45 that the emails that get sent from all
04:48 those mechanisms don't get sent to spam
04:50 and things of that nature and so there's
04:53 been quite a few topics on that on the
04:55 forum and on Weaver space lately
04:57 and yeah I thought that'd be good topic
04:59 to chat about yeah no thanks for uh my
05:04 idea my idea thanks for bringing it up
05:10 Joe yeah it seems like Gmail and Hotmail
05:18 really starting to crack down on this
05:20 and to be honest it's kind of about time
05:23 that they did this you know I've been
05:26 getting a lot of tickets lately if
05:28 people are saying you know people are
05:30 submitting in my contact forms I'm not
05:32 getting them or they're going into spam
05:33 and the major major root cause is the
05:40 their DNS their DNS lacks what's called
05:44 an SPF record and I don't mean sunscreen
05:46 it's is it's a record it's a it's a text
05:50 record for those who know what a text
05:52 record are is it's a text yeah it's
05:55 Joe's putting his hat on top but oh my
05:57 hat now you're gonna take that when you
05:58 go to Vegas
05:59 yeah you gonna need that when Vegas its
06:03 it says that this server that this mail
06:06 is originating from is authorized to
06:08 send messages on your behalf so you know
06:12 Google and other email providers see
06:14 this random message come out and it's
06:17 from a server they'd never seen before
06:18 saying that oh you know this is coming
06:22 from Joe and you know they say well Joe
06:26 the server's not authorized to send on
06:27 Joe's behalf so they put it into spam
06:30 they rejected so basically the SPF
06:33 record it contains all the IP addresses
06:34 that an email should be coming from for
06:38 your domain correct yes but it's not as
06:41 as explicit as that because you can
06:43 specify plus a which has you know the a
06:47 record of this of the site and then plus
06:50 MX so the MX records are authorized and
06:52 then you get a list domains you can
06:54 include you can include extra domains in
06:57 there so you know you can say include a
07:01 CS and all right you know re Amazon
07:04 services and you're not gonna you're not
07:06 gonna list every single IP that Amazon
07:08 owns you'll never stop to be typing to
07:10 your to your dead and then you can
07:17 actually list specific IPs and so yeah
07:21 so that's that's what the major problem
07:24 is and then you know people who lack
07:25 that that's been they that's been the
07:28 resolution for them so like if if your
07:31 client changes the a record on their
07:33 domain to point to your hosting account
07:35 and they're not updating their SPF
07:38 record and you ask why is there contact
07:40 and the former that web site not working
07:42 that's an example of why I might not
07:44 work might not be working you know
07:48 another thing would be like you know you
07:51 can and this is just a little a little a
07:53 little background is you can spoof the
07:56 from address in an email when you send
07:59 it right so when you submit a contact
08:01 form a lot of you know some contact
08:04 forms will set the from address on the
08:08 email that's sent out as the e as being
08:12 from the person who submitted the email
08:15 so if I felt a contact form to put my
08:16 email address in and you know the
08:20 contact form is gonna say that message
08:21 came from me but you know when I put in
08:24 my email address I use if I'd said at
08:27 gmail.com and you're and this message
08:30 originated I don't care if it was chili
08:32 dog I don't care who was that server is
08:36 not a Google servers on a gmail server
08:38 so that message will always fail the SPF
08:41 record test
08:42 though you know be careful that that
08:45 server that email address is structured
08:50 properly and has the right signature and
08:52 right and right form that make sense
08:56 Joan did I wasn't clear
08:58 totally so basically you know we also
09:01 have to be careful of you know also
09:05 isn't the reply to what we set up as the
09:07 reply address important as well so like
09:10 it could potentially be it's better if
09:12 you have a reply to an actual reply to
09:14 address versus like just having you know
09:17 it's from no reply at Weaver space right
09:21 you know actually have a replying
09:23 address doesn't doesn't that have a
09:25 little bit of weight as well or no what
09:26 was your experience there um I haven't
09:32 seen that be as much of an issue okay
09:35 well you you definitely hear the from
09:39 address is your domain though right it's
09:41 not like so like you're sending it from
09:45 you know if I'm sending it a form from
09:48 my Weaver space website right the email
09:51 address that it's getting sent from
09:52 should be Weaver space as well
09:54 right I'm sorry say that one more time
09:59 in kitchen so so let's say I have a form
10:03 on Jill Rickman net okay um and I'm
10:07 using you know it could be foundation
10:08 form it could be a forms plus form
10:10 whatever right and it's sending an email
10:13 out to let's say the person that's
10:16 filling out the form okay yeah a gmail
10:19 let's say oh they're cheap yes let's say
10:21 sending an email to Gregg at gmail.com
10:24 okay and basically the from address you
10:29 know that that emails getting sent from
10:31 should be a Joe workman dotnet address
10:36 right because I see a lot of people what
10:39 they do is they'll they'll have their
10:41 website on you know Joe workman net but
10:44 then they'll put their there from
10:45 address as Gmail and then a lot of times
10:47 their host or their server that that
10:50 won't get ever get sent the person will
10:52 never get it because the host Oh
10:56 which is a good thing they limit they
10:58 make sure that the from address is
10:59 always the same domain as the website
11:02 you're sending the email from it's not
11:04 so much on the outgoing it's the
11:06 incoming they see the mismatch okay
11:09 right so you know that if you set that
11:14 from address being you know matcom and
11:18 you're sending it to a Gmail Google sees
11:21 the server that this came this message
11:23 came from and says this server is not
11:27 associated with matcom it's not
11:28 authorized or with to sent on behalf of
11:31 my uncle um there you go okay that makes
11:34 sense and that's when they say this is
11:37 this spam and you know that's gonna hurt
11:40 your don't hurt probably hurt your
11:42 domain reputation as well what what you
11:45 can also do in what forms plus does by
11:47 default is it doesn't set the from field
11:51 so lets a server set it when it sends
11:54 out the message and then it sets the
11:56 reply to so you know that can be
12:00 confusing some customers don't like it
12:02 so I have options where ever you can
12:04 overwrite that but what that does is you
12:08 get actually it some discs get sent from
12:12 root at the server name com mm-hmm which
12:15 which is always valid because it
12:19 actually originated for that server and
12:20 then the reply to is sent to that to the
12:23 email that the person specifies mm-hmm
12:26 you know the this person informs Plus
12:28 specifies new when the when that Gmail I
12:31 just went to rise a gmail and the hurt
12:33 person hits reply it actually goes back
12:36 to the right place it doesn't come back
12:37 to my server it goes back to the correct
12:39 location yeah makes sense yeah so yeah
12:43 then you know you can do that too you
12:44 don't have to set the from you can set
12:47 the reply to instead okay sweet so what
12:52 else what else could we do Gregg for
12:54 email deliverability had SPF SPF DNS you
13:00 know setting our DNS record I should say
13:02 you know making sure that you know we
13:04 have the proper you know reply to or
13:07 from address in our forms if we're using
13:09 for Mandar on our servers on our
13:12 websites what else can we do
13:15 there's something called a DKIM well
13:21 which is like a domain key identify
13:23 think it stands for a domain key I
13:25 identify your mail or something like
13:27 that
13:28 yes and I should have pulled this up for
13:37 you know a few before you quiz me I sort
13:40 of pulled it up and line it up right on
13:42 it but yes and I will what I will do is
13:46 I will give so I guess the first things
13:48 I would say is don't send bulk messages
13:50 via your personal email use it using
13:54 newsletter service you know use
13:57 MailChimp use my newsletter service I
13:58 don't care you know send you to send
14:00 your both messages through one of those
14:01 servers and I think this dkim thing is
14:04 mostly for bulk is sending services it's
14:06 not for you know it's probably not for
14:08 you know I have a form email thing on my
14:11 web page right okay you know our content
14:13 is form right right the decay time
14:16 things mostly if your be gonna be
14:17 sending bulk mail I'm out that's my that
14:21 correct yeah I see um
14:25 domain keys identified mails and method
14:28 to validate the authenticity of email
14:30 messages when an email is sent it is
14:32 signed using a private key and then
14:34 validated on the receiving mail server
14:36 using a public key that is in the DNS
14:39 this process verifies that the message
14:41 was not altered during transit so a
14:44 little different than SPF yeah it's
14:47 basically an encryption it's public
14:48 public private encryption key um you
14:50 know a solace so SPF says SPF says the
14:54 message came from a place that's
14:56 authorized ascended this one says it
14:58 wasn't changed altered in transit yeah
15:02 so I mean when I set up Amazon SES
15:05 because I use Amazon's SES service for
15:08 my bulk email basically I got the DKIM
15:12 key from them and then you know I just
15:15 copied and pasted it into my DNS records
15:17 you know I did I didn't you know try to
15:20 figure out how to create all that stuff
15:21 I just you know Amazon just told me
15:23 this is the key to use put this in your
15:25 DNS record and I did it um so yeah yeah
15:31 yeah so you know I I like to use a site
15:37 called post postmark app I'll give I'll
15:41 give Joe a couple of links to a couple a
15:47 couple of tools that they have they have
15:49 a tool that will I don't know how it
15:56 works but they'll send you a weekly
15:58 report and tell you how many messages
16:00 were passing alignment mm-hmm I don't
16:06 know I'm not sure how it works but yeah
16:10 I just told you like these number of
16:12 messages that were that they saw for
16:16 some reason and this is how many past
16:17 this this tests and gives you kind of a
16:20 report if you're an advanced user and
16:23 jitan that's kind of stuff that might be
16:25 um you know
16:26 oh it's actually d mark down the 1d mark
16:29 oh yeah I was do mark as well yeah
16:33 forgot about that one
16:34 yeah that's a pretty new one I think
16:35 right um I actually haven't set up any D
16:38 mark yet so that one's pretty new to me
16:39 it's it's not my to-do list to research
16:42 that because I know Google has been
16:45 really starting to you know look at D
16:46 mark to you know consider things as spam
16:48 and whatnot you know I haven't done it
16:53 for a while it's just another text
16:56 record so you just create a text record
16:59 in a subdomain let's say d mark is a
17:01 standard that allows you to set policies
17:02 on who can send email for your domain
17:04 based on DCAM and SPF if you are new to
17:08 email authentication we recommend first
17:10 reading about SPF and deacon which we've
17:12 kind of touched upon in combination with
17:14 SPF and DKIM ad mark policy and DNS
17:17 allows you to set rules to reject or
17:19 quarantine emails from sources you do
17:22 not know
17:23 through support from ISPs Demark allows
17:27 you to receive reports on sending
17:30 activity for a debate okay so these
17:32 companies have kind of have a coalition
17:35 I guess to let you get a report on if
17:39 your mess
17:39 messages part passed Demark so um you
17:44 know we talked about this and before
17:46 somebody goes about implementing all
17:49 this stuff on their domain
17:50 I should we should really caution them
17:52 because you can really mess up your
17:55 email deliverability on us you know so
18:00 be very careful because it's very easy
18:02 to change your SPF record to use reject
18:07 any messages that don't pass your strict
18:09 rules and you know what things stop
18:11 working you don't know what's going on
18:12 so thread very lightly yeah basically
18:17 you know you push it and try to create
18:18 your own SPF record you thought you know
18:20 you know talk longer host and well
18:23 although on that note if you go into the
18:26 email authentication section of your
18:28 control panel
18:28 mm-hm
18:30 there's a nice tool that builds the deep
18:33 that you can enable deacon and modify
18:37 your SPF records right there so you can
18:39 put in the IP address you can put
18:40 include extra services into it and it's
18:44 it's you you can't screw up the format
18:46 you it's really easy to automate it gets
18:49 with a win yes yes so but you know my
18:53 point being is that if you say reject
18:57 something or reject by default then you
19:01 can really like you know hurt your
19:03 emails you know I'm getting it box so
19:05 just be careful perfect sense you know
19:09 just don't put a hard fail oh that's the
19:15 guy my brain dump on email
19:17 deliverability I have one more maybe one
19:21 interesting story to wrap up this
19:23 conversation so it was a back in June I
19:27 think it was January I was testing so I
19:30 was moving all the email from being sent
19:33 from Joe or Internet so all my new look
19:35 newsletters prior to January were still
19:37 getting sent from my support at Joe work
19:39 or net address I wanted to send them all
19:41 from the Weaver space domain so I
19:43 started testing with that and I noticed
19:45 that a lot of my stuff was getting sent
19:47 to spam even my own right so like I'd
19:49 send an email and it was going on my
19:51 spam folder and I'm like what the heck
19:53 and so I I use a tool called email on
19:57 acid it's it's a little expensive I use
20:00 it too for basically for email testing
20:02 for my email stacks but inside there
20:05 they have like this spam tool that you
20:08 can basically you know you put your
20:09 email in and it told in it basically
20:12 calculates it for spam and when I was
20:14 running my email through there I was
20:16 getting a score of you know it was like
20:19 a score of like 0.7 or something like
20:22 that and basically anything above so in
20:25 it's a rating of like zero to ten it
20:28 uses this open source thing called spam
20:30 assassin right which a lot of services
20:34 use and I was giving a spam assassin
20:37 score of about 0.7 and I'm like but why
20:40 in the heck am I getting sent to spam on
20:44 my own server my own email provider and
20:47 so I was confused so I went through and
20:49 I used fast mail for my personal email
20:52 and luckily in on their web interface if
20:56 you go to the spam folder it actually
20:58 gives you the spam score for every email
20:59 and I was getting a 5.7 and I'm like
21:04 what the heck when I run it through the
21:06 spam assassin test or an email on acid I
21:09 was getting like a 0.7 I should be
21:10 golden so I emailed fast mail support
21:14 and they dug into it and apparently my
21:17 domain was flagged by this company
21:20 called vade secure um not sure why it
21:24 was flagged but my domain was flagged by
21:28 vade secure and fast mail uses a vaild
21:33 secure plugin on top of the normal
21:36 default spam assassin so what they did
21:40 was they request they submitted a ticket
21:43 on my behalf to vade secure they removed
21:46 my domain from being blacklisted um and
21:49 all of a sudden magically my email
21:51 stopped going to spam cool yeah so I
21:57 have a feeling that it was because I'm
21:59 used I was just straight using a stop
22:01 space domain cuz um I had some other
22:04 interesting other things similar like on
22:05 Facebook Facebook wasn't allowing me to
22:08 boost any blah any posts on Facebook
22:11 that linked to Weaver space and it was
22:15 because they didn't trust a dot space
22:17 domain yeah I've seen something similar
22:22 to that I think the lesson here is don't
22:23 use don't play ad space domain yeah well
22:28 I think they're becoming more common so
22:29 I think companies are becoming aware and
22:31 they're more you know they're more
22:34 willing to unblock that I sent an email
22:36 to Facebook I'm all good there now and
22:38 there's basic here when I found that out
22:40 I'm all good there now um are there
22:42 others out there that could be blocking
22:44 me it's possible um yeah I've seen I've
22:48 seen that too and you know there's I was
22:53 I was discussing with the client and you
22:55 know
22:57 and we don't have any insight into how
22:59 or when these databases get updated
23:01 right so we have no insight into their
23:03 logic but not you know you know not only
23:06 done only disband filters scanned the
23:09 origins of the message but they scan the
23:11 contents of the message so you know if
23:14 there's images in there that that you
23:19 know no text and like lots of images or
23:21 there is links links in the email for
23:25 domains that are in spam databases those
23:29 can get flagged - mmhmm right so yeah
23:33 there's there's all sorts of stuff they
23:34 couldn't affect your email
23:37 deliverability but just you know the
23:39 basic core stuff is what we're talking
23:41 about we haven't touched upon spam
23:43 filtering and and and those kind of
23:46 things that's like a can of worms and
23:53 there's also was a you know Apple Mail
23:54 Apple no no there's a pretty good job
23:56 but that runs locally on the computer
23:58 and you know you're talking about fast
24:02 mail and you know they have a set of
24:05 filters that they're using and you know
24:07 say they have a knack to have that extra
24:08 plugin you know the next the next guy
24:11 next door has a totally different set of
24:12 tools so you know just because you've
24:17 figured your promo and one one is this
24:18 doesn't mean it's you know solved
24:21 completely unfortunately actually yep
24:23 how the internet works how the internet
24:25 works but anyways yeah so this is this
24:30 has been a new thing it's been hot on
24:32 the forums I've been getting longer
24:33 tickets on it so I know you know get
24:37 these xbf records set up the food
24:40 haven't already you know chili dog users
24:43 if you haven't you know if you haven't
24:45 any recent if you joined recently and
24:46 stuff like that you're all set on it's
24:48 on by default now and used to knob it
24:50 used to not be enabled by default and in
24:52 the control panels but now it's on me
24:54 so I am yeah but I haven't I haven't
25:01 heard I haven't heard from any of those
25:02 users because they've been all set is
25:04 the people that are haven't had the SPF
25:06 records that are inquiring so
25:09 I know if he's had a oh yeah any people
25:11 email you about like my foundation forms
25:13 aren't getting me other than so I had a
25:17 post actually just yesterday someone
25:19 asking you know I've used you know
25:21 foundation form super forms form looms
25:23 you know everything else and now he's
25:26 used in job form and saying who's
25:28 starting have issues with job form with
25:29 email deliverability so that's what kind
25:32 of spurred me to I thought it would be a
25:34 good idea to chat about that you know on
25:36 this on this show my idea yes do my idea
25:40 I bow down Greg a bow down okay cool
25:52 Greg let's wrap this up work in
25:53 everybody find you on the interwebs you
25:56 can find me at chili dog software calm
25:58 and chili dog hosting common ad bar
26:01 shared on Twitter channel chard I am at
26:04 Jill workman everywhere you Instagram
26:06 I've been doing so I've been playing
26:07 around with Instagram stories lately if
26:10 you want to follow me over there and
26:11 having some fun I actually played the
26:13 harmonica today on on my own Instagram
26:16 stories I bought a harmonica Greg water
26:20 God now you get a cowboy hat and a
26:22 harmonica no stress let's see uh
26:30 should I go corny or bluesy you need a
26:33 player need to play our closing than
26:34 closing increments
26:49 how was that Gregg come on baby now you
26:52 get to play I get to play our opening
26:54 banter if you guys enjoy the show check
27:04 out all of our great archives over on
27:06 Weaver radio.com
27:08 we have a lot of great episodes I've
27:10 probably posted if you've asked
27:11 questions on the forums I linked to
27:13 various podcast shows all over the place
27:15 that help people out
27:17 I linked to the episode 10 a lot Gregg
27:20 it's the show on HTTP I linked to that
27:24 show a lot for people and has really
27:25 helped people out so if you're curious
27:27 about HTTPS check out episode 10 it's
27:31 been a crowd favorite for understanding
27:33 all that stuff apparently me and Greg
27:35 did a good job there so pat on the back
27:37 pat yourself on the back on that one
27:38 Greg and we're already an hour already
27:41 and I grooves I mean yeah well take care
27:45 everybody we will talk to you next week
27:48 Cheers
28:03 you"}]