Email from my domain (mxroute) going straight to junk mail or being rejected

#1

I’ve used MXRoute for 10 months without issue, but starting last month my email is going straight to junk for O365/Outlook users, and I’ve just had an email rejected by a large firm.

SPF record is correct.

mxtoolbox shows: No DMARC Record found and DMARC Quarantine/Reject policy not enabled
Not sure if that is related.

Here is the rejection from PCLaw support
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Remote-MTA: dns; us-smtp-inbound-2.mimecast.com
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 554 Email rejected due to security policies - https://community.mimecast.com/docs/DOC-1369#554 [qPnCXjz9MlW-wMKa9w_Xyw.us107]

Is the “friday” SMTP server being rejected? please help!

#2

In this case the content of your email triggered a filter used by Mimecast. Their exact wording for this is here:

A signature was detected that could either be a virus, or a spam score over the maximum threshold. The spam score isn’t available in the Administration Console. If you aren’t a Mimecast customer but have emails rejected with this error code, contact the recipient to adjust their configuration and permit your ad- dress. If unsuccessful, your IT department can- submit a request to review these email rejections via our Sender Feedback form.

You can use that Sender Feedback Form but should instead work with your recipient’s IT department or consider altering the content that you are sending. This isn’t a case of them blocking us, rather they’re blocking you. It doesn’t have to be intentional, it could be that their IT department has merely gone overboard in configuring their inbound filters through Mimecast.

This is fairly common with people who use Mimecast, it is very easy to configure it in a way that causes you to reject desirable inbound emails.

About emails landing in spam folders, I recommend this read: I see an increase in complaints about emails landing in spam folders. Has delivery quality reduced?

#3

What score do you get on mail-tester?

I’d start from there, see what needs to be fixed.

Didn’t have any problems with delivery - also on friday server.

#4

Thanks guys, mail-tester was giving me a 7,.x it suggested I setup DMARK which I did and that bumped me up, and also my signature/image-to-body ratio was high.

I did the DMARK setting and removed my sig for a small email and that got me up to a 9/10
only thing that is left is DKIM, but is that not an option with mxroute? Anyway I think it’s good now.

Thanks for the help!

#5

THIS RESPONSE IS NOT IN REGARDS TO THE OP’S INITIAL ISSUE:

Yes, it is indeed an option. Depending on which server your service is on it will either be simple or difficult. Clients on the older cPanel based servers were strongly advised not to set this up as truth be told, the clients WOULD NOT follow the directions properly, so it became much simpler to suggest just not using DKIM records. Newer DirectAdmin servers are much more friendly to deal with.

So, yes … you can set up DKIM - the only exception being if you are on the super old VestaCP servers as they do not handle DKIM whatsoever. From your OP I am guessing that you are on the ‘Friday’ server? So, it can be done BUT read the instructions, stop, read the instructions again, stop, read them one more time, then do it. If you need help you can come to the chat.mxroute.com support channel.

#6

Some say it’s not necessary, but I haven’t had it cause any problems. So I set up the whole lot: SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Here’s my Friday setup (cPanel one):