Boost Email Deliverability With a Static IP Address

DNS stands for Domain Name System, which is basically the protocol computers use to connect to each other across the web. If you sent an email to "JaneDoe@AnySite.com" your mail server would do a DNS lookup on "AnySite.com" so it would know to actually send your message to the mail server at "123.45.67.890". That mail server would then route your message to its user named "JaneDoe". DNS works both ways - the receiving email server has an IP number and the sending email server has an IP number. Until a few years ago, the IP address of the sending email server wasn't all that important. But, with the onslaught of spam, all that has changed.

Today, most mail servers will check the IP address of the sending server before accepting the message, to see if the mail is coming from a static or dynamic IP address. The receiving mail server performs a reverse DNS lookup - it checks the IP address that the email is coming from to make sure that address belongs to the sending mail server.

If an email message is claiming to be from "YourCompany.com" the receiving mail server will make sure the IP address does indeed belong to YourCompany.com. It's easy to check this when the sending IP address is a static one. A static IP address belongs to one particular computer and the address always stays the same.

However, a dynamic IP address changes every time the computer connects to a network or the web. It's not possible to perform a reverse DNS lookup on a dynamic IP address. Dynamic IP addresses are used by individuals with dial-up or DSL accounts on personal computers. Unfortunately, they are also used by spammers. So if a bulk of mail is coming from a dynamic IP address, there's a good chance the mail will be sent immediately to the spam folder.

If you're sending your marketing messages directly from your own computer using the email configuration provided by your internet service provider, you're probably using a dynamic IP address with no reverse DNS lookup. Now, this isn't a problem if you're sending one-off messages to Aunt Betty, but it does become a problem if you're sending a bulk email to your entire client database. If you're using a from address like "JoeSmith@YourCompany.com", since the dynamic IP address assigned by your ISP does not belong to "YourCompany.com", there's a good chance your message will be rejected.

You might think you can resolve this issue simply by using "JoeSmith@YourISP.com" as your from address; unfortunately, this doesn't always work either. In an effort to protect their users from unwanted spam, ISPs treat bulk email differently than they do individual messages. And, since the sending IP address is still a dynamic one, there's a good chance your message will still end up in the spam folder.

The best thing to do is to ensure that your website's DNS entry is complete and is capable of a reverse lookup. Then use your webhost's email server to send all your marketing messages. Check with your web hosting company's technical department to verify that your website and its corresponding email server are both using static IP addresses with complete DNS entries. And while you're at it, ask them to set up an SPF record for your domain.

Using complete DNS entries will not guarantee that your email is delivered 100% of the time, since there are still many more issues that affect deliverability. But it's one step toward reducing the likelihood that your email will be mistaken as spam.

Time to implement: this shouldn't require more than a fast phone to your webhost's technical department. If you've been your ISP's mail configuration, your webhost can walk you through the correct steps for setting up your email client to use your host email server

iYogi Computer Repair, PC Repair Support Video

MintDNS 2006 Tutorials

MintDNS 2006 is a fully featured server suite that allows you to run your own enterprise level DDNS Server.

Supporting both Dynamic and Static DNS MintDNS also supports several standard update protocols. Which enables support for many existing third party IP address update clients, and many hardware(Firmware) clients. This allows you to provide time tested reliable Dynamic DNS services to most all internet connected computers, or even remote cameras.

MintDNS is completely template based, so the look and feel of your DNS service can easily be adapted to match your existing website or modified to suite your specific needs.

We have provided Dynamic DNS solutions for more than 5 years. MintDNS 2006 Enterprise is our latest product and is also the most dependable, feature rich and scaleable product we have ever offered.

If your interested in custom development you may like to know that MintDNS is almost completely open sourced allowing you to easily expand on the existing system to meet any special needs your company may have. The advantage to having an established time tested platform to build on could save months of development time.

The all new web based administration console gives you instant access to advanced user management features, statistics charts, accounting features and complete control over server settings.

Dynamic Host Computer Protocol (DHCP) Tutorials

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a protocol used by networked devices (clients) to obtain the parameters necessary for operation in an Internet Protocol network. This protocol reduces system administration workload, allowing devices to be added to the network with little or no manual configurations.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is a way to manage network parameter assignment from a single DHCP server, or a group of DHCP servers arranged in a fault-tolerant manner. Even in small networks, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is useful because it can make it easy to add new machines to the local network.
DHCP is also recommended even in the case of servers whose addresses rarely change, so that if a server needs to be readdressed (RFC2071), changes can be made in as few places as possible. For devices such as routers and firewalls, that should not use DHCP, it can be useful to put Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) or SSH servers on the same machine that runs DHCP, which also serves to centralize administration.
DHCP can be used to assign addresses directly to servers and desktop machines, and, through a Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) proxy, to dialup and broadband on-demand hosts, as well as for residential Network address translation (NAT) gateways and routers. DHCP is generally not appropriate for infrastructure such as non-edge routers and DNS servers.

E-mail hosting service

An email hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs email servers.

Email hosting services usually offer premium email at a cost as opposed to advertising supported free Email Support or free webmail. Email hosting services thus differ from typical end-user email providers such as webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding email users and Small and Mid Size (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own email hosting service. Email hosting providers allow for premium email services along with custom configurations and large number of accounts. In addition, hosting providers manage user's own domain name, including any email authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce in order to convey the meaning that using a specific domain name identifies and qualifies email senders.

Most email hosting providers offer advanced premium email solutions hosted on dedicated custom email platforms. The technology and offerings of different email hosting providers can therefore vary with different needs. Email offered by most webhosting companies is usually more basic standardized POP3 based email and webmail based on open source webmail applications like Horde or Squirrelmail. Almost all webhosting providers offer standard basic email while not all email hosting providers offer webhosting.

Email Troubleshooting Tutorial

Email seems simple, but email delivery can fail at any number of places in its journey from the MUA (mail user agent) of the sender to the MUAs of the intended recipients. Delivery may be delayed in a mail queue somewhere in the network cloud, may fail because the email was deleted by a spam filter or rejected for being over file-size limits or having the wrong MIME type content...or the user may be embarrasses to realize that the email that mysteriously vanished is still sitting in their outbox.
Messages sent to mailing lists can be unexpectedly rejected or sent to moderation queues because the sender doesn't understand posting rules, which can vary from list to list and depend on how the sender is classified by each mailing list. Generally, the privilege of direct posting is limited to certain classes of known users to protect the list from spam. Users may think something is wrong when they are unable to post directly to a list when they are actually using a different account from the one under which the posting privileges were granted.
The need to troubleshoot email isn't limited to apparent delivery failure or delays. Sometimes users receive automated email messages they don't understand, or sometimes inappropriate messages get posted to a list.
The existence of so many variables yields so many potential failure points that even though email seems simple in principal, troubleshooting email is an inherently complex process. In the interests of empowering everyone in the online community who would like to understand more about email Support and possibly troubleshoot email themselves, this documentation addresses a wide audience from users experiencing issues when posting to a mailing list to mailing list administrators and site managers. It covers a broad range of topics specific to troubleshooting email but references material scattered throughout the Concepts, Appendix and Tools page help. The purpose of this introduction is to help you get a birds-eye-view of the available documentation, some suggestions as to what might be of most interest to you (depending on whether you are a website user or administrator), plus some pointers that we hope will guide you along the fastest path to the information you need to resolve your issue.

E-mail hosting service

An email hosting service is an Internet hosting service that runs email servers.

Email hosting services usually offer premium email at a cost as opposed to advertising supported free email or free webmail. Email hosting services thus differ from typical end-user email providers such as webmail sites. They cater mostly to demanding email users and Small and Mid Size (SME) businesses, while larger enterprises usually run their own email hosting service. Email hosting providers allow for premium email services and Email Support along with custom configurations and large number of accounts. In addition, hosting providers manage user's own domain name, including any email authentication scheme that the domain owner wishes to enforce in order to convey the meaning that using a specific domain name identifies and qualifies email senders.

Most email hosting providers offer advanced premium email solutions hosted on dedicated custom email platforms. The technology and offerings of different email hosting providers can therefore vary with different needs. Email offered by most webhosting companies is usually more basic standardized POP3 based email and webmail based on open source webmail applications like Horde or Squirrelmail. Almost all webhosting providers offer standard basic email while not all email hosting providers offer webhosting.