Hello.
I am absolutely new to phplist and before even setting it up on my VPS server, i would like to know how to avoid getting my server’s IP / domain black listed.
My online search results about this topic found topics mostly about blacklisted users/subscribers or server IPs blacklist checker websites, but nothing useful about good practices to keep a server in the good guys department.
I have a VPS server on Inmotion hosting, and i have a customer with a 2500 subscribers list that sends 2 or 3 campaigns per week. Subscribers are split in 2 different segments for different domains, so each campaign would be actually sending about 1000 emails. I have been told by inmotion support there is no send limits on my account, but i suspect if my server sends batches of 1000 emails it might get blacklisted as spam by the email providers?
Is there some kind of rule on this or any guide how to make phplist spead out the emails being sent to avoid getting flagged as spam?
Hi Axmail and welcome. In the config.php file located in your install is where you can set throttling. For example, look at these settings:
// define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
// is disabled and messages are sent out as fast as possible
define(‘MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE’, 120);
// define(‘MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE’, 0);
// define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
define(‘MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD’, 3600);
So in the above case 120 emails can be sent in one hour (3600 seconds). That’s one email every 30 seconds. This is a nice way that I’ve found to “warm up” the receiving services to your emails. You are not sending them out in one run really fast but spaced apart. Over time I’ve discovered I can increase the number per hour but I never ever send them all out at once.
As well, on WHM/Cpanel, there is a feature that will show you your bounces and why. I then go through them and delete all those email accounts that where blacklisted by the receiving internet service provider.
This is just one way of throtteling your sending. I’m others use different methods.
@pancakehollow Thanks a lot for such useful information.
30 seconds to start sounds good to me.
Now i am thinking setting up a new cPanel account on my server with a newly registered domain and a different IP address so i do not risk the main account hosting my other clients (i have about 10 clients on my server using the same IP for some regular emails too)
now
If i install phpList on this virgin space on my server with the dedicated IP, it will be under (ex) mydomain.com. I got the basics of setting up DKIM and SPF, will need to do some research on DMARC as i am not too savvy on this.
So reading the documentation i understand there is the option to create sub accounts with individual logins for example my clientdomain dot com. This client is hosted under the aforementioned main account on my server. Question is, if i will be able to setup the sub account to send emails under his domain, or the emails will be always be seen as coming from mydomain dot com ?
Thanks again for the input, it is already a lot of help.
I have a similiar situation where I have a sub-domaon of maindomain.com, i.e., subdomain.maindomain.com, where I create the emails in phplist and that subdomain is where phplist resides. In cpanel/WHM at least in my install and I’m not an expert in this so proceed with caution, you create your main domains with the cpanel/WHM dns manager. In there are DNS records that you manipulate in the WHM interface NOT the cpanel interface. You create A records for your subdomain and text records for your subdomains and they reside within the main records for your top level domain. At least that’s what I do and it works fine. Then all the DMARC, DKIM and SPF records have privleges to cover your sub-domains, too. Again, I’m a bit of a novice here so you should check with someone else or your hosting provider but in general, that’s how it works for me all of the online tests for those domains and subdomains pass and my delivery rates are very good with no spam hits.