Is Your Email Address "Blacklisted?"

A lady emailed me yesterday very upset over the fact that
her friend's Internet Service Provider (ISP) wasn't
delivering important email messages.

This lack of delivery caused a real problem for the two of
them with ruined plans, missed appointments, and just plain
inconvenience.

If you don't use email, this might not sounds like a "big
deal."

But this problem of non-delivery has dramatically affected
the way businesses use email and is now about to reach
epidemic proportions for consumers using email.

To put things into perspective, imagine if every time you
dialed a friend's phone number you had no idea whether it
would ring or not.

Now imagine how frustrated you would feel over time if you
kept dialing the same number and it never rang for you, but
others could get through and your friend's phone number
never changed.

That's exactly how you'll feel when your personal emails
start getting blocked for seemingly no reason.

The problem of legitimate email messages not getting
through stems from the uncontrolled and unstoppable
onslaught of spam that currently grips the Internet with
seemingly no end in sight.

The fact that viruses can now "spoof" email addresses and
make it look like someone sent a virus to thousands of
people doesn't help matters either.

In an effort to cut down on spam, ISP's implement a number
of counter-measures, including: text filters, spam
databases, and IP blocking.

If your email message doesn't get delivered, most of the
time it means you inadvertently got caught in an ISP's
"defense system."

If you ever find your email messages don't get through, or
if you'd like to head off problems before they occur, the
following tips should help.

Encourage all your email contacts to "whitelist" your email
address in their email program.

Just like you can say which email addresses you don't want
to get messages from, you can specify a list of email
addresses you always want accept.

In Yahoo or Hotmail you can set up your filters to accept
email messages from a certain source regardless of the
subject line or content of the message.

It takes a little patience to set up, but it pays big
dividends by not losing important messages.

With Outlook and Outlook Express, you can set up message
rules to always accept messages from certain senders.

If you send messages to people who use AOL, try this
technique. Get them to add you to their address book
"safelist" or "approved senders."

This helps AOL identify that the message recipient "knows"
you and has a higher likelihood of actually wanting to
receive your message.

Email AOL tech support for help on this if you encounter a
problem.

If filtering and "white" listing don't work, then your
friend needs to contact their ISP to sort out the problem.

Their ISP can certainly figure out why messages don't get
through, but it may take some concerted encouragement to
get the ISP's customer service to take the time to
investigate the cause.