PHPmailer sends to junk email

Question

I've just updated a contact form to use PHPMailer to stop emails being marked as junk, with no luck.

It's a fairly straight forward setup I'm using but its still going into peoples junk mail.

Here is my script, I was wondering if anyone could tell what was wrong?

include_once('../inc/phpmailer/class.phpmailer.php');

$mail = new PHPMailer();

$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$body = "Name: ".$name."\r\n";
$body .= "Email: ".$email."\r\n";
$body .= "Message: ".$_POST['message'];

$mail->From       = "mailer@blah.com";
$mail->FromName   = "Contact BLah";

$mail->Subject    = "Contact From: Blah";

$mail->Body = $body;

$mail->AddAddress("john@blah.com", "john");
$mail->AddAddress("david@blah.com", "david");

if(!$mail->Send()) {
  $errorMsg .= "Error sending message, please try again later.";
} else {
  $errorMsg .= "Message Sent successfully.";
}

I thought that PHPmailer normally takes care of inserting proper headers?

Any thoughts?

EDIT: Added spam score

-Spam-Status: "score=0.0 tests=none version=3.1.7 cmae=v=1.0 c=1 a=8nJEP1OIZ-IA:10 a=soyWjZv28gkhNSke5wm04A==:17 a=fqdOs_Nl9wd82e3SDigA:9 a=l-lynuxnH-gfU2bevBoA:7 a=wPNLvfGTeEIA:10 a=nymK5Bb5l1cA:10 a=_6wjLm_vFSYA:10 xcat=Undefined/Undefined" X-Spam-Level: *

EDIT 2: I just tried the script on a different server from the clients and it has the same result. Do I have to send through the SMTP setup for it not to be classed as spam?

Answer 1

Some reasons your mail can get marked spam:

1. You're sending spam
2. Your IP, or a block of IPs surrounding your IP has been marked as a spam source on one or more blackhole lists
3. The content of the email is triggering spam filters.
4. The recipient has added you to their blacklist
5. The recipient didn't add you to their whitelist
6. You're sending a mixed source mail ("From: xyz@example.com", but sending it from "someotherdomain.net")
7. SPF records for your server are misconfigured/not configured at all
8. Domain keys are misconfigured/not configured at all

etc...

PHPMailer is a tool. Consider it a hammer. The hammer may have bent the nail, but only because the wielder didn't aim right.

The only way you'll solve this problem is by examining the bounce messages (if any), and whatever showed up in the recipient's mailbox. If they receive the mail, but it goes into a spam folder, then get a copy of the mail and examine its headers. Most spam filters will put their spam score/reasoning in there.

Answer 2

Small hint:

add in a line like so

 $mail->AddReplyTo( 'mailer@blah.com', 'Contact BLah' );

It should decrease your SPAM rating significantly.

Answer 3

I was having the same problem using PHPMailer, and here's what fixed the problem for me: set the Sender (this is different and distinct from the "From") to a valid email account for the domain you are sending the email from. This causes PHPMailer to properly set the "envelope-from" information so that the email passes SPF and Sender-ID validation. Without doing this, the "envelope-from" is a OS user id and server combination which will not be verifiable.

Example Code:

$mail = new PHPMailer;

$mail->From = 'from_email@domain.com';
$mail->Sender = 'sender_email@domain.com';
...

Answer 4

It is not necessarily PHPMailer's fault, there are several possible reasons for your server to be blacklisted. You can check here to see if this happened