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I'm working on a digital gifting platform that relies on email reaching the inbox. Email is sent through Amazon SES, and has high quality (recipient's name in the email, single recipient, personally crafted message, extremely low bounce and complaint rate). However, I am still seeing very mixed results as to spam filter behaviour. Some get marked as spam some don't on the same ISPs.

I currently have no DKIM, SPF, or Sender ID set (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/authentication.html)

Is there any downside to using all of these together, or should I pick and choose?

Charles
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Peter
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  • In terms of understanding and support in the real world, SPF > Sender ID > DKIM. The three options are *not* mutually exclusive. Do all of them if you can. DKIM takes the most effort because *all* mail from the domain, not just that sent via SES, needs to be signed. DKIM also offers the highest level of "guarantee" that the mail is legitimate. Just always keep in mind that "legitimate" mail can still be spammy and may be blocked just the same. – Charles Jan 25 '13 at 09:31
  • @Charles can you elaborate on 'all mail from the domain needs to be signed' for DKIM? There is company mail sent through Google mail that wouldn't benefit from the SES DKIM setup. – Peter Jan 25 '13 at 16:31
  • @Charles also this answer seems to state that signing just the SES is still beneficial; if you have different info please share (I will still look into signing the google apps email as well, however) http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/14352/is-it-bad-to-only-sign-some-of-a-domains-emails-with-dkim – Peter Jan 25 '13 at 16:41

1 Answers1

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Your problem seems to be here:

I currently have no DKIM, SPF, or Sender ID

You definitely need SPF records to send email reliably from AWS. Due to ease of use, EC2 would be a spam haven without SPF. See this SO answer which describes how to configure SPF for use with EC2. Don't forget to fill out this form to request that Amazon remove sending limits from your EC2 instance.

Community
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dotancohen
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