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It seems many mail server admins are having some major trouble with Yahoo lately. Basically mails to Yahoo often get "deferred" during most hours. Some of them eventually do not go through after multiple tries and end up returned.

Here I'd like to share some of my experience on getting your email servers whitelisted with Yahoo.

First of all, the regular checkups and guidelines apply. Make sure your mail server IPs are not blacklisted by any spam database. Make sure your domains have proper SPF records (http://www.openspf.org/) set up. Make sure the IPs have reverse DNS (PTR) records set up that match the names of the mail servers. Etc etc.

Secondly, I strongly recommend that you deploy domainkey and DKIM with the free smartermail plugin DKeyEvent. Yahoo explictly checks domainkey and there is another reason that I'll explain later in this post.
http://forums.smartertools.com/forums/15443/ShowPost.aspx

Now don't bother filling out any forms on Yahoo's online help. You'll end up getting automated responses that direct you to further communications. Instead go straight forward and send an email to:

3. Make sure that this email itself reflects a good demonstration of your mail server setup. (as stated above clean IP, reverse dns, SPF, domainkey if possible)

4. The subject of the email should be something like this: " Request To Accept Emails From My Mail Server Into Yahoo User's Inbox". Or "Request To Prevent My Emails From Being Delivered To Yahoo Bulk Mail Folder"
(For some reason titles like this work better than "request to whitelist my server IP". To prevent the emails from being treated as "bulk email", Yahoo will whitelist your IP and your "deferred" problem will also go away")

5. The first paragraph of your email body is a very brief self introduction like this:

Hello,

I am the mail server administrator of [your company/website].
This email is to kindly request that emails sent from my mail servers to be delivered properly into Yahoo user's inboxes. My mail servers are not involved in any spam activity. They have proper reverse DNS, SPF, and DomainKey records set up.
Below you'll find my answers to your questionnaire. If you have any further questions please don't hesitate to conact me at [your email address]

Please note the domainkey I mentioned in my earlier text. If you have it set up, mention it asap to prove that your mail servers are in full accordance with Yahoo's policy.

6. Here comes the long and boring part. The rest of  your email is your answer to Yahoo's 17-question mail server admin's questionnaire. You need to answer each and every one of them briefly and precisely, to the best of your effort.
Plesae note that since you are not allowed to use HTML, make sure you format your text in a way that is very easy to read. For example, separate each question into deviders like this:
*****************************************************************************

*****************************************************************************

1. Do you rent, lease, buy or otherwise obtain email lists from
companies, individuals, organizations, or websites (other than those you
own) that do not indicate that the customer will be subscribed to this
specific email list?

   a. If yes, do you explicitly send an opt-in confirmation email to the
email addresses you have acquired?
      i. If yes, please send a text-only example of this email.

   b. If no, please explain how you obtain email addresses.

2. How do you verify that the true owner of the email address you have
obtained is valid?

3. Do you offer list management services for other companies (i.e., as
an ASP)? If so, please provide us with your standards for accepting your
clients' email lists.
  
4. Do you rent, lease, sell, or otherwise give email lists to other
companies, individuals, organizations, or affiliates without providing
notice to the email users that they will be subscribed to the buyer's
specific email list?
 
5. Please indicate the information below pertaining to email sent to
Yahoo! mail.

   a. How frequently do you send email to Yahoo! users in a given month
and how many emails are sent in the average mailing?

   b. If you send email to multiple addresses, how many addresses are
sent to, for an average mailing?

   c. If you are an ASP, what has your average client mailing frequency
been over the past six months?

   d. Are you emails informational and subscriber based (newsletters)?

   e. Are your emails for marketing to other than existing customers?

6. Please specify your policies pertaining to both soft (4xx) and hard
(5xx) SMTP response codes or bounce messages.
 
   a. Do you remove email addresses from your mail server or list if
emails to them bounce?
      Soft:
      Hard:
      
   b. How many bounced emails are required before you consider an email
address to be inactive and subject to removal from your list?
      Soft:
      Hard:

      i. After an email address reaches your bounce limit, how long
(i.e., minutes, hours, etc.) does it typically take to remove the email
address from your list?
         Soft:
         Hard:

     c. Are there any circumstances under which you ignore the standard
definitions (4xx) being temporary and (5xx) being permanent, and instead
apply your own non standard interpretation?  If so, when/what/how? 

7. If a user requests removal from your email list, how long (i.e.,
minutes, hours, etc.) does it typically take to remove the email
address?
      When user clicks an unsubscribe link (if applicable):
      When user requests removal:
      Other:
 
8. If a user is removed from your email list, what happens to that email
address in your database?

9. Please copy and paste a text-only example of a recent mailing, having
the delivery issue, including full Internet headers.  Include the entire
error message if email is being returned or undeliverable.

Within a Yahoo! Mail account, you can display this information by
clicking the "Full Headers" link located within the message in the
bottom right-hand corner.

10. Please provide all of the active email IP address(es) and domain
names you are currently using to send your mailings including notes with
regards to dedicated or shared status for each.  We do request email
administrators to describe which of their clients corresponds to each IP
address.  Please submit this information in the following format:

   IP Address:  xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
   Mail Server Domain Name:  server_name.domain.com
   Notes: dedicated IP, domain/list server

At this time we can only consider active and correctly configured mail
servers/IPs for possible addition to the whitelist. 

11. Are these IP addresses dedicated solely for your company's mailings?
If not, please specify which IP addresses of your email servers are used
only by your organization.  Please use the following format:

   IP Address:  xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
   Mail Server Domain Name:  server_name.domain.com
   Notes: billing, employee newsletter, company in-house information
only

12. Are you planning on utilizing DomainKeys
(http://antispam.yahoo.com/domainkeys) to authenticate your mailings? 
If so, when do you plan to fully implement and use DomainKeys?
 
13. Please provide the "From" address(es) in the mailings you send.
 
14. Please provide the URL of your web site.
 
15. Please provide the URL of your Privacy Policy and other relevant
policies.
 
16. Please provide the URL of the site at which users opt-in to receive
your mailings.
 
17. Finally, please provide the following contact information:
         Company name:
         Postal Address
               Street:
               City:
               State:
               Zip Code:
               Country:
         Key contacts
               Name:
               Title:
               Email address:
               Phone number:
         Contact email address for important service announcements:  

7. Whew it's long isn't it. But you'll have to make Yahoo happy. =P. So think carefully when you answer each question. Think about the kind of answer that Yahoo want's to hear. This is not to tell you to lie, but you know what I mean.
Note that Yahoo keeps asking about your "mail list". If you do not even have a email list (like some email news letter ), you can explictly tell Yahoo so. You can tell them that your emails are sent only for essential communications such as a web site membership/billing/business related etc.  Obviously, if you can answer "Yes, I've already utilized domainkey on my server. You may check my domain DNS record or this email itself for proof" to question number 12 " Are you planning on utilizing DomainKeys" you'll be at an advantage.

Question 10 is where you list all your mail server IPs that you wish to be white listed.
Question 9 is where you should copy and paste (including full headers) a sample email that got deferred by Yahoo. Make sure the content of this email is not advertising related. =)

That's about it. The only thing you can do next is to wait and pray. If Yahoo likes you, you may receive a response in a few business days like this:

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail. We appreciate your responses to
the questionnaire.

While we cannot fully exempt your mail server from our SpamGuard
technology, we have made appropriate changes to your mail server's IP
addresses in our database.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Thank you for this excellent post. I have made it sticky for now.

Excellent post! Thank you!

I have a couple questions:

1) What is the response time you experienced? If I don't get a response within a certain amount of time, should I resend it the email?

2) Also, I have set up the DomainKeys using the free plugin for SmarterMail (DKeyEvent). Their user guide was VERY vague as to how to implement the domain key in your DNS.  I use MS DNS. Can you shed any light as to the proper way to do it. I hope I did it right, but just wanted to verify from someone who has experienced sucess.  It also seems there are 2 keys to implement, did you do both or just one?

 Also, has anyone else been having problems with Hotmail lateley?  I think they might be doing something similar to yahoo. I've been getting lots of emails returned from hotmail. I'm not on any blacklists, I have SPF setup and DomainKeys.

trevnet:

I have set up the DomainKeys using the free plugin for SmarterMail (DKeyEvent). Their user guide was VERY vague as to how to implement the domain key in your DNS.  I use MS DNS.

 

There is a video tutorial, you know...

 

It's easy enough to show someone in a video, but it also is helpful to have documentation/instructions as to what the fields you are filling in, actually do. 

rhyno:

It's easy enough to show someone in a video, but it also is helpful to have documentation/instructions as to what the fields you are filling in, actually do. 

 

Yes, you're right, but as you know, management of DNS records is very software specific - the specifics might not actually be the same even for different versions of the same software. So adding software specific guides in the main documentation can actually cause more confusion that it's worth. This is why I thought that specific guides are best suited for forum topics or direct support enquiries. And as for explaining things like DNS records, I don't know... many people only shy away when they see (what they perceive to be) long and complicated details. I think that for most, what you need to know is really sufficient; what you might like to know is, after all, available elsewhere.

 

We had the problem for about 2 weeks. Contacting Yahoo is like banging your head against the wall (not suggested).

After reading this tutorial we did install DomainKeys and boom, within 24 hours mail was flowing.

Im not sure if that was it because we only set up signature on several accounts but I guess that helped whitelist our IP.

We figured it was DK since Yahoo is its father, can this be true?

 In any case installing DK wasnt that hard and the manual did an ok job, watch out for the funny menu in the setup...it looks like an image but its really a menu (that threw me of in the beginning)

 

I went ahead and followed your suggestions and got this reply from Yahoo:

 

************************************************************************

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Mail.

While we cannot fully exempt your mail server from our SpamGuard technology, we have however, made appropriate changes to this IP address in our database.  This should help with delivering mail to the appropriate Yahoo! folders.  Let us know, if we can be any further assistance.

Please be aware that Yahoo! Mail users are able to set their own preferences for the manner in which they receive your mailings. If the recipients of your messages want to ensure they receive your emails in their Inbox, you may want to ask them to set up a filter in Yahoo! Mail specifically for your emails, or have them add your email address(es) to their Yahoo! Address Book.

Please refer to the Help page below for more information on our recommended best practices for bulk mailers.

   http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/bulk/bulk-01.html

If you significantly change your policies, please feel free to contact us again to submit a questionnaire in 6 months, and we will re-evaluate your answers and mailing practices at that time.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

************************************************************************ 

On the form that I submitted to them I put in one IP to get "whitelisted" yet anything from that IP still gets tossed into the Bulk folder.    Did you notice that this "whitelisting" allowed you to get into the inbox?

 

 

In my case, yes my emails do get into inboxes. However just like the email said, "we cannot fully exempt your mail server from our SpamGuard technology".

Somehow your emails probably scored poorly against Yahoo's internal spam filter. I guess it has something to do with the type of email. Are you running some sort of mai list/news letter? Also is the rest of your mail server setup in full compliance to the standards I described (proper reverse dns, blacklist free, spf, domain key etc)?

On the brighter side, getting into the bulk email folder is much better than not being delivered at all. I have figured in the recent years that no matter how well you do, it's just impossible to guarantee that all your emails won't get labeled "spam" by the various filters/providers, especially the huge free providers like yahoo/hotmail. As a matter of fact many of the users of these services have already got used to "looking for what they are missing in the bulk email folder".

Thank you for this post.  I have installed DomainKeys and it seemed to work for a few weeks, then email from yahoo stopped again.  So I am trying this route as well. 

I am wrorking through the email but I don't know how to answer these questions because I can't figure out how SmarterMail handles them:

 

6. Please specify your policies pertaining to both soft (4xx) and hard
(5xx) SMTP response codes or bounce messages.
 
   a. Do you remove email addresses from your mail server or list if
emails to them bounce?
      Soft:
      Hard:
      
   b. How many bounced emails are required before you consider an email
address to be inactive and subject to removal from your list?
      Soft:
      Hard:

      i. After an email address reaches your bounce limit, how long
(i.e., minutes, hours, etc.) does it typically take to remove the email
address from your list?
         Soft:
         Hard:

 

Any information / advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

SM doesn't automatically make changes to a ListServ based on bounces.  I wish it did, but it doesn't.  So the info above would be based on what you would do.

I would like some assistance getting DKIM plugin  setup on my mail server. Can anyone help me with this?

800-640-3932

from time to time i have problems with 451 and it's never been as bad as this time because now msgs are not getting delivered at all. the only parts missing from my server are domain keys and reverse DNS. before i go thru the trouble of installing domainkeys,has ANYONE been able to get whitelisted when the only part missing in their setup is having reverse DNS for every domain?

i am a consultant who provides hosting for some of my clients. how can reverse DNS be mandatory when so many hosting companies use multiple domains per IP for their shared hosting clients?

thanks

i guess installing DomainKeys without proper reverse DNS won't help help, since you get a rejection before you even present the name of your host. The only thing yahoo has at that point is the reverse DNS of your IP address, which may not be the domain that your domain key is on. what they can do is keep track of which IP addresses presented "signed" email in the past... anyone has a clue if this is the case?

a lot of help here:

http://www.ahfx.net/weblog.php?article=107

from what i gather DomainKeys do help, it seems that yahoo does indeed keep tabs on IP that successfully sign at least once.