PlainText email

Hello all, I am sending email messages to users of a  site I run.  In an effort to lower the SPAM score. I am thinking about switching some of the more vital communications to plain text only email.  I haver tested this and the emails go out fine.  When check the email in my Hotmail account or Outlook, it displays just fine as plain text.  No problems.  However, in my GMail and Yahoo accounts, nothing is displayed for message content.  When I view the original in GMail, I see the message content.  I am using ColdFusion MX7.  Below is the original message (minus header information) as received by GMail. Return-Path: <info@careersinfood.com> Message-ID: <5782296.1296074847303.JavaMail.SYSTEM@Automation> Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:47:27 -0600 (CST) From: info@careersinfood.com To: bcc900s@gmail.com Subject: Your CareersInFood.com profile is about to expire. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative;   boundary="----=_Part_91883_30388397.1296074847303" X-Mailer: ColdFusion MX Application Server X-Server: High Performance Mail Server - http://surgemail.com r=1553965877 ------=_Part_91883_30388397.1296074847303 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Your Login ID: bcc900s@gmail.com 215568 The profile you posted on CareersInFood.com is about to expire.  Please visit CareersInFood.com to update your profile now. If there are no changes needed in your profile, just login to your account and update your profile without making any changes. This lets us know that your information is current. Updating your profile ensures that prospective employers and recruiters have the most current information available. You can update your skill set and your personal profile while you are there. If your profile is not updated it will be deactivated and will no longer appear in Employer/Recruiter searches. http://www.careersinfood.com/info/Jobseekers.cfm ------=_Part_91883_30388397.1296074847303 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ------=_Part_91883_30388397.1296074847303-- Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Brian Cain

Brian, Read my blog post on this exact topic. It may help you with this issue of setting the text portion of the email correctly. http://www.trunkful.com/index.cfm/2010/5/27/How-to-CFMAIL-Properly-and-Keep-the-SPAM-in-the-Can Wil Genovese Sr. Web Application Developer/ Systems Administrator Wil Genovese Consulting wilgeno@trunkful.com www.trunkful.com On Jan 26, 2011, at 2:43 PM, Brian Cain wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

Thanks for the info Wil.  I did read your blog, and my original design was coded exactly the way you specified using 2 mail parts (text and HTML) and specifying the type as HTML in the cfmail tag itself as seen below. <cfmail to="#Candidates.EmailAddress#" from="#SysSettings.Postmaster#"   subject="#Expired#"   server="#SysSettings.MailServer#"> <CFMAILPART type="text"> Your Login ID: #Candidates.EmailAddress# #Candidates.CandidateID# #ExpiredContent.Text# </CFMAILPART> <CFMAILPART type="HTML"> #ExpiredContent.HTML# <p>Your Login ID is #Candidates.EmailAddress#</p> </CFMAILPART> </cfmail> I was noticing that the HTML part of the message was raising my SPAM score.  Many of the messages we send are purely informational and do not require the niceties of HTML  display formatting so in an effort to reduce the SPAM score I simply removed the HTML part of the cfmailpart tag, leaving the text cfmailpart in place.  This is when my problem started.  It appears as though including a cfmailpart of type text without an HTML counterpart was causing the problem.  I am sad to say that the only fix I could find was to do something close to your example of the improper use of the cfmail tag.  If I simply include the mail message with no cfmailpart tags and do not specify type="HTML" in the cfmail tag my message is displayed correctly, or at least as I intended it to. I do like your use of the textMessage function.  I may incorporate something like that in my system.  I will definitely help cut down on redundant coding. Thanks, Brian Cain

Brian, If you are sending ONLY text then change the type attribute in the CFMAIL tag from html to text or set it to text explicitly. I think at this point using the CFMAILPART type text then become redundant.  CFMAILPART is great for sending multi-part emails, but you are sending a single part email at the moment. As for the issue of increased SPAM scores when HTML is included, one of the reasons this may happen is that SPAM filters will compare the text portion to the HTML portion (By stripping HTML I presume) and see if they are significantly different. This is where my textMessage() function comes in handy. It generates the text portion from the HTML portion in what seems to be the same fashion that SPAM filters check to see if the two sections match.  Thus a low SPAM score. The reason SPAM filters do this check is because a lot of SPAM is multi-part. The HTML making use of images to show the real message, while the text portion is some auto-generated text that seems plausible for a non-SPAM email. This was done by spammers to try to get past the text analysis of emails. So now SPAM filters compare the two parts.   Also, the simpler the html the better. Less images (or none) makes many SPAM filters happy. What SPAM scores were you seeing in the multi-part messages?   Wil Genovese Sr. Web Application Developer/ Systems Administrator Wil Genovese Consulting wilgeno@trunkful.com www.trunkful.com On Jan 26, 2011, at 5:04 PM, Brian Cain wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

having valid SPF records or domain keys will often make up for the points you have picked up by having an HTML email. ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

I have valid SPF records and have verified those are working.  I have domain keys setup on a different mail server I manage, and am considering setting them up on the one that sends out our notification messages.  I have been putting it off because I would have to upgrade to the latest version of the mail server software (Surgemail). Thanks, Brian Cain

Thanks for that info.   That makes a lot of sense now that I think about it in regard to the comparison between the HTML and text portions.   The SPAM score I am seeing is  -2.6 according to Port25's authentication verifier service.  That is for Spam Assassin. I has checked on some other messages, and I was getting scores above 5.0 so I was worried. Brian Cain

Brian, Those SPAM scores sounds way high for the email being sent.  Send _one_ to my email address and I'll see what my email/SPAM server does with it.   Wil Genovese Sr. Web Application Developer/ Systems Administrator Wil Genovese Consulting wilgeno@trunkful.com www.trunkful.com On Jan 27, 2011, at 8:53 AM, Brian Cain wrote: ----- Excess quoted text cut - see Original Post for more -----

There is one coming your way from info@careersinfood.com Thanks, Brian Cain

Brian, The SPAM score was not high enough to trigger adding spam headers on my server.   So I just adjusted my server settings so that anything above 0 should add spam header info.  Try one more. Wil Genovese One man with courage makes a majority. -Andrew Jackson A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well. On Jan 27, 2011, at 9:46 AM, Brian Cain wrote: > > There is one coming your way from info@careersinfood.com > > Thanks, > Brian Cain

Ok, I finally found your SPAM score. I guess they want you to put a few line breaks in the message. ---------------------------------------------------------- SpamAssassin check details: ---------------------------------------------------------- SpamAssassin v3.2.5 (2008-06-10) Result: ham (01.8points, 10.0 required)   pts rule name              description   ---- ---------------------- -------------------------------   * -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record   *  0.0 HTML_MESSAGE BODY: HTML included in message   *  1.8 MIME_QP_LONG_LINE RAW: Quoted-printable line longer than 76 chars Wil Genovese Sr. Web Application Developer/ Systems Administrator Wil Genovese Consulting wilgeno@trunkful.com www.trunkful.com On Jan 27, 2011, at 9:46 AM, Brian Cain wrote: > > There is one coming your way from info@careersinfood.com > > Thanks, > Brian Cain