Your email setup can be improved

[Ensiferous]

Hey SMF peeps,

I just happened to notice that one of your security update emails went into my spam filter (gmail). I imagine that this is kind of bad for people who actually need those notifications to stay safe so I gave your setup a look-over and here's a list of what you can improve to make sure your emails do not go into the spam filter of people.

• Add a SPF record to your DNS settings listing your server IP as a permitted sender for your domain.
• Sign your emails with DKIM.
• Ask your host to add a reverse DNS record so that your IP points to the simplemachines.org domain.

These are the technical steps you can take immediately to improve it a bit. I kind of fear it's only temporary, though, as you don't have an unsubscribe link in your email but instead require users to login (and most likely reset their password to do so). I know you're not legally required to have such a link since it's not commercial email so CAN-SPAM doesn't apply. Ultimately that's not really the problem, though. The problem is that most people are not going to go through all that effort just to unsubscribe from your notifications when they can just hit the spam button and not see your emails again. When enough people do this your domain and IP will end up on spam lists regardless and then people still won't receive your security notifications.

[LiroyvH]

Hi,

Thanks for your post and recommendations.
We're aware of the issues with the mail server configuration with SPF/DKIM and plan on fixing them relatively soon.

Not sure why the PTR was reset though, hickup at the provider I guess.