All E-mails goes to spam folder of GMail, Hotmail and other email providers using phpmailer

Question

Recently I have a problem on sending e-mail with PHP Mailer function. Every mail which I sent from my script is straight way goes to spam folder on GMail, HotMail a

Answer 1

The good thing here is that u're emails are being received by ISP like gmail... which mean that u're code (phpMailer) is working fine, So is problem which make goes to junk is surely not the code but something else. IT's very hard for me to assist your ticket without some details like the generated header by ISPS your trying to reach its inbox folder, but i can give you some example that could affect u're emails: For example the content that u're using in u're emails (html,words,from,Subject), the reputation of your ips address and domain used to snd emails. Also you have to verify that the sending domain has an spf record that authorize your ips to send from.

Answer 2

Recently I have a problem on sending e-mail with PHP Mailer function. Every mail which I sent from my script is straight way goes to spam folder on GMail, HotMail and other mail providers.

The issue has nothing to do with PHP Mailer, your code or even your host. But it has to do with overall outgoing mail settings on your hostname & even IP address. Meaning when you say this:

And I got result like SUCCESS which means “Mail Successfully Sent.” But when I check on my GMail the mail which I sent is on SPAM folder.

Correct, your mail was actually sent by the server. Which is good. But the mail servers on the receiving end somehow do not trust your hostname or IP address. A few things can be done to remedy this. Such as setting and SFP record in your hostname’s DNS & setting a PTR (reverse DNS) record for the IP address of the server that is sending out the actual e-mails.

First & foremost, is vendarcorporates.com an actual domain? Doing a ping for it on this tool that pings globally shows consistent Unknown host: vendarcorporates.com results. If that is the case & you are trying to send with that, there is your problem right there.

As far as SPF records go, that is a DNS record that means “Sender Policy Framework” which translates to basically meaning: You, as the owner of a hostname allow these other IP addresses & hostnames to send e-mail on your behalf. More details here specifically this:

Even more precisely, SPFv1 allows the owner of a domain to specify their mail sending policy, e.g. which mail servers they use to send mail from their domain. The technology requires two sides to play together: (1) the domain owner publishes this information in an SPF record in the domain's DNS zone, and when someone else's mail server receives a message claiming to come from that domain, then (2) the receiving server can check whether the message complies with the domain's stated policy. If, e.g., the message comes from an unknown server, it can be considered a fake.

The way you would set this up is to set up a TXT (text) record in your DNS with something like this:

"v=spf1 ip4:123.45.67.890 ~all"

Assuming your domain is vendarcorporates.com, an SPF record like this would work as follows on the receiving end:

• Hey, I just received an e-mail message from someone claiming to be vendarcorporates.com!
• Does the IP address connected to this message directly belong to vendarcorporates.com?
• If it is an IP address connected to vendarcorporates.com, then all good!
• But this IP address is 123.45.67.890 and it is not connected to vendarcorporates.com. So let’s check the SPF record.
• Okay, I am reading the SPF record, and 123.45.67.890 is allowed to send e-mails for vendarcorporates.com, so let’s let this message through.

Now that might not completely solve the issue. So in addition to an SPF record, you need to make sure your server has a valid PTR (reverse DNS) record that in some way matches your hostname.

Unlike a DNS record where a hostname is translated to an IP address, a PTR record is a reverse DNS record where an IP address is translated into a hostame. More info on Wikipedia.

How you can set a PTR is dependent on the way your host works.

• Some placed like RackSpace allow customers to set PTR records on their own.
• Others like Amazon AWS will allow you to request a PTR record, but they need to approve it.
• And many others simply will not let you set a PTR record on your own. You need to contact your hosting service & ask them to setup a PTR record for you.

The reason PTR records are important is it is yet another check in the “Is this SPAM?” chain. So it would play out like this:

• Hey, I just received an e-mail message from someone claiming to be vendarcorporates.com!
• Does the IP address connected to this message directly belong to vendarcorporates.com?

That second step where there is a check to see if an IP address of a mail is connected to vendarcorporates.com? That is the PTR record check.

I’m fairly confident that having both the SPF & PTR record for your domain name & host set will clear up this issue.

And on the outside chance that you do have an SPF & PTR record set yet e-mails end up in SPAM? Well, that means your hostname and/or IP address is blacklisted. And that is a whole other can of worms for you to deal with. You can check your blacklist status with an online tool like MX Toolbox & follow individual service recommendations to request you be removed. But depending on the severity of your ranking in this list, this could either be a simple task or a very complex one.

Which is all to say, while tools like PHP Mailer ease the process of sending e-mails, the whole process of ensuring your e-mails are not tagged as SPAM is a whole other proverbial beast that has little to do with coding specifics.