Jan
20
When does mass mailing become spam?
January 20th, 2009 posted by
admin
I run a small website, currently under 500 members, that requires registration. I recently started sending weekly emails from my website, giving members notice of changes and a “post of the week” selected from the message board. The membership profile allows the member to choose whether or not they receive the emails, and, the emails have an unsubscribe link.
The first three emails were received by yahoo members, but in testing this weeks message, it wound up in my yahoo spam filter. None of the emails have ever contained words that I feel would be caught by “spam” filters.
If enough people press the “this is spam” button instead of unsubscribing to the emails, would all emails from my site be considered spam for other members?
Is there a list of “spammer” websites yahoo publishes that my site might be on? If so, where is it and how do I get off of it? I’ve gotten good feedback from the newsletters, and activity has increased.
Malik L says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:45 am
Since you are sending the email to so many addresses, you may be fitting a profile of a spammer
Plus, a lot of people DO use spam filters rather than “Unsubscribe” links. A lot of unsavory types will use the “Unsubscribe” function as a ploy to find out what addresses are active. When someone unsubscribes from a spammer’s message, the spammer will note that address as being active and target them with other messages. If the spammer does NOT recieve the unsubscribe request, they may assume that the address may not be active (so the spam filter saves you some headache)
christy says:
January 26th, 2009 at 7:49 am
any email can be considered spam when a person chooses to click on the spam button.
often times, people forget they agreed to receive emails or they change their minds.
i do know that yahoo does say that when people label things as spam, it does help them to recognize spam. spam is not considered words, but rather unwanted, mass emails.
i would suggest testing the system in the next few weekly emails. perhaps if you only email 100 people at a time or something.
i don’t think that there is a “national list of spammers” or anything like that. it isn’t something that you can get off of either.