Why shouldn’t I use Yahoo!, AOL, Mail.ru email as my “From” address? Video

Some email service providers adjust the Domain Name System (DNS) to control how you use the “From” field in email. They want to ensure that people use only trusted servers to send messages. And they want recipients to be confident that, when they receive an email, it was sent from the company that owns the domain.

In brief, this means that when you use a specific domain in the “From” field, you can send messages from authorized servers only.

Such DNS configuration conforms to a policy called Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance DMARC. The list of email service providers who adopted DMARC policy includes:

  • Yahoo! (@yahoo.com, @ymail.com)
  • AOL (@aim.com, @aol.com)
  • Rocketmail (@rocketmail.com)
  • Mail.ru (@mail.ru, @bk.ru, @list.ru, @inbox.ru, @mail.ua)

This practice has a negative impact on the deliverability of your email marketing messages. When you use GetResponse (or any email marketing software) to send an email with a Yahoo!, AOL, Aim or Mail.ru “From” address, the email bounces.

Solution: To achieve better results in delivering messages, use an email address that is not hosted at Yahoo!, AOL, Mail.ru or any other free domains such as Gmail, Hotmail, Aim, etc. Setting up your own domain and associating it with your email address works best in all cases.

How does the DMARC policy work?

DMARC is a well-respected organization — respected not only by Yahoo but by other top ISPs, such as Hotmail and Gmail. The heart of DMARC is an email validation system created for brands that are often victims of phishing attempts.

This validation system enables any company to add a security-related DNS record to their domain. This DNS record gives the company control over any email with a “From” address based on their company’s domain but not sent from their server. The record lets them specify whether the email is to be delivered, quarantined, or rejected.

This means major ISPs look for messages with a “From” address using a specific domain, mark them as unwanted email, and block the delivery.

So if you use a Yahoo, AOL, or Mail.ru email address as the “From” address in your marketing emails or autoresponders, you can expect a big increase in the number of rejected emails.

The extended list of international Yahoo! domains that you can’t use with GetResponse:

y7mail.com
yahoo.at
yahoo.be
yahoo.bg
yahoo.cl
yahoo.co.hu
yahoo.co.id
yahoo.co.il
yahoo.co.kr
yahoo.co.th
yahoo.co.za
yahoo.com.co
yahoo.com.hr
yahoo.com.my
yahoo.com.pe
yahoo.com.ph
yahoo.com.sg
yahoo.com.tr
yahoo.com.tw
yahoo.com.ua
yahoo.com.ve
yahoo.com.vn
yahoo.cz
yahoo.dk
yahoo.ee
yahoo.fi
yahoo.hr
yahoo.hu
yahoo.ie
yahoo.lt
yahoo.lv
yahoo.nl
yahoo.no
yahoo.pl
yahoo.pt
yahoo.rs
yahoo.se
yahoo.si
yahoo.sk
yahoogroups.co.kr
yahoogroups.com.cn
yahoogroups.com.sg
yahoogroups.com.tw
yahoogrupper.dk
yahoogruppi.it
yahooxtra.co.nz
yahoo.ca
yahoo.co.in
yahoo.co.nz
yahoo.co.uk
yahoo.com.ar
yahoo.com.au
yahoo.com.br
yahoo.com.hk
yahoo.com.mx
yahoo.de
yahoo.es
yahoo.fr
yahoo.gr
yahoo.in
yahoo.it
yahoo.ro

For more information on the importance of using custom domains, please read our blog article.

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