Ensuring mails are delivered to inbox is like with most things, partly science and partly art. By creating visually appealing designs, impeccable punch lines and great content if you think that mails will get delivered to INBOX then you are wrong!

Free eMail service Providers like yahoo, rediff greatly depend on reputation of IP that you send from. They also monitor the open rate history of your mails by the end users.

Gmail operates little differently. The way Gmail classifies spam depends heavily on reports from our users. Gmail users can mark and unmark any message as spam, at any time. To increase the inbox delivery rate of your messages, make sure that all recipients on your distribution lists actually want to receive the mail. Visit the following sections for some tips on how to make sure your messages are welcomed by Gmail users.

Authentication & Identification

To ensure that Gmail can identify you:

• Use a consistent IP address1 to send bulk mail.
• Keep valid reverse DNS2 records for the IP address(es) from which you send mail, pointing to your domain.
• Use the same address in the 'From:' header on every bulk mail you send.

We also recommend publishing an SPF record and signing with DKIM. We do not authenticate DKIM3 using less than a 1024-bit key.

By authenticating, inline images you send will be shown automatically. Recipients will not need to click the "Display images below" link.

Subscription

Each user on your distribution list should opt to receive messages from you in one of the following ways (opt-in):

• Through an email asking to subscribe to your list.
• By manually checking a box on a web form, or within a piece of software.

We also recommend that you verify each email address before subscribing them to your list.

The following methods of address collection are not considered 'opt-in' and are not recommended:

• Using an email address list purchased from a third-party.
• Setting a checkbox on a web form or within a piece of software to subscribe all users by default (requiring users to explicitly opt-out of mailings).

Unsubscribing

A user must be able to unsubscribe from your mailing list through one of the following means:

• A prominent link in the body of an email leading users to a page confirming his or her unsubscription (no input from the user, other than confirmation, should be required).
• By replying to your email with an unsubscribe request.

Because Gmail, yahoo, rediff can help users automatically unsubscribe from your email, we strongly recommend the following:

• Provide a 'List-Unsubscribe' header which points to an email address or a URL where the user can unsubscribe easily from future mailings. (Note: This is not a substitute method for unsubscribing.)

To help ensure that your messages aren't flagged as spam, we also recommend that you:

• Automatically unsubscribe users whose addresses bounce multiple pieces of mail.
• Periodically send confirmation messages to users.
• Include each mailing list they are signed up for, and offer the opportunity to unsubscribe from those in which they are no longer interested.

It's possible that your users forward mail from other accounts, so we recommend that you:

• Explicitly indicate the email address subscribed to your list.
• Support a URL method of unsubscribing from your mailing list (this is beneficial if your mailing list manager can't tell who is unsubscribing based on the 'Reply-to:' address).

Format

• All bulk messages you send must be formatted according to RFC 2822 SMTP4 standards and, if using HTML, w3.org standards.
• Messages should indicate that they are bulk mail, using the 'Precedence: bulk' header field.
• Attempts to hide the true sender of the message or the true landing page for any web links in the message may result in non-delivery.
• The subject of each message should be relevant to the body's content and not be misleading.

Delivery

While Gmail, yahoo, rediff works hard to deliver all legitimate mail to a user's inbox, it's possible that some legitimate messages may be marked as spam. Gmail does not accept 'whitelisting' requests from bulk senders, and they can't guarantee that all of your messages will bypass spam filters. To make sure users receive all the mail they'd like to, gmail has provided them with a method for sending us feedback about messages flagged as spam -- users have the option of clicking a 'Not spam' button for each message flagged by it???s spam filters. Gmail listen to users' reports, and correct problems in order to provide them with the best user experience. As long as users don't consider your mail as spam, you shouldn't have inbox delivery problems.

There are two important factors that, under normal circumstances, help messages arrive in Gmail users' inboxes:

• The 'From:' address is listed in the user's Contacts list.
• A user clicks 'Not Spam' to alert Gmail that messages sent from that address are solicited

If you send both promotional mail and transactional mail relating to your organization, we recommend separating mail by purpose as much as possible. You can do this by:

• Using separate email addresses for each function.
• Sending mail from different domains and/or IP addresses for each function.

By using these tips, it's more likely that the important transactional mail will be delivered to a user's inbox. Our guidelines are meant to help you build a good reputation within the Gmail, yahoo & rediff system, resulting in continual delivery to inboxes.

If you are sending mail in accordance with these guidelines and Gmail, yahoo rediff will certainly try and deliver the mail to INBOX

• 1. IP address: An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a series of numbers that identifies a digital device such as your computer. They work like your home address--they allow data to arrive at the correct Internet location.
• 2. DNS: A DNS (Domain name server) is the web service that translates a website's name to its Internet address
• 3. DKIM: DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a way to digitally sign messages and verify that the messages were sent by a particular domain. It works like a wax seal on an envelope, preventing messages from being tampered with.
• 4. SMTP: SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a set of standard Internet procedures by which two email providers (ex. Gmail, Yahoo Mail), transfer email messages to one another???s mail servers