Problems sending to hotmail / mail goes to "junk email" folder

07 Jan 2009

Support Center » Knowledgebase » Problems sending to hotmail / mail goes to "junk email" folder

	Problems sending to hotmail / mail goes to "junk email" folder

Solution Hotmail appears to be increasingly fussy over the email it accepts. Email that might once upon a time be filtered to the "junk email" folder (whether erroneously or not) may now be bounced back (see example below). Other, legitimate email is often filtered to the "junk email" folder.

One way to try and resolve this is to try and increase the amount of trust Hotmail has in your email. This is particularly important if you send out "mass mailings" to a mailing list - promotions or newsletters, for example. One way to do this is to create an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record for your domain. You can find more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework . SPF is an industry-wide initiative and the adoption of SPF will also increase the amount of trust other email providers (such as GoogleMail and Yahoo) have in the email that you send.

We would be happy to set up SPF for your domain. This involves creating SPF record for you domain, updating the Internet domain name system and advising Microsoft that this has been done so that they update their systems to accept mail from your domain on a more trusted basis.

Our charge for doing this is a one-off payment of £40 +VAT.

If you would like to take this forward, please contact

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If, when you send a message to a hotmail.com or hotmail.co.uk address, you see a message similar to the following, you are affected by this issue:

undeliverable to

Server response to MAIL FROM:
550 OU-002 Mail rejected by Windows Live Hotmail for policy reasons. Reasons for rejection may be related to content with spam-like characteristics or IP/domain reputation problems. If you are not an email/network admin please contact your E-mail/Internet Service Provider for help. Email/network admins, please visit http://postmaster.live.com for email delivery information and support

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Created On:

23 Jun 2008 09:31 AM