Policy Changes In Yahoo

Policy Changes In Yahoo May Effect Deliverability

Yahoo has made changes to their authentication policies which may affect the deliverability of your newsletter. That means if you send a campaign and your From address is a personal address at yahoo.com, there is an increased chance your emails will go to spam or bounce. Remember, this only affects you if you are using a yahoo.com From address on your email campaigns.

The Policy Change
Yahoo uses a technology called DMARC to digitally publish policies governing how other mail servers should interpret email sent from yahoo.com. The recent change requires that any email bearing a yahoo.com From address must originate from Yahoo mail server IP address. Email providers like Gmail, Hotmail and others who use DMARC will reject yahoo.com email not from Yahoo mail servers.

Why is this happening?
This change is done in an effort to combat fraudulent email, but has not been without its share of controversy. The controversy stems from the fact that this policy change breaks most mailing lists and can cause some trouble for email service providers. This change will certainly be inconvenient for some senders, but Yahoo is well within their rights to make this change. If you are sending email campaign from a Yahoo address, we recommend switching to your own domain or your company’s domain.

The Solution
Right now, using From address from other personal email providers like Gmail or Hotmail, is still okay. But it’s possible these companies will make the same DMARC change in future. The best solution is to use an email address at a private domain you control, like your-company.com. Email protocols allow custom From addresses, even if the email is not actually being sent from that domain. The simple is not to use a “@yahoo.com”. Wondering if changing the From address will affect your sender reputation? Bonus points for being an astute email sender! Email receivers use a variety of factors to determine your sender reputation, which helps them deliver your email to the inbox or spam. One of those factors, indeed, the From address. Changing the From address could have a temporary effect on your sender reputation – temporary because the email receivers will eventually figure out who you are. But if you send good emails to engage lists, your sender reputation will quickly improve.

Yahoo is in favor of improving the email ecosystem. If you are sending email campaigns from a Yahoo address, we recommend switching to your own domain or your company’s domain. If you use Yahoo Conversation feature, we recommend using a non-Yahoo email address in your website in your user profile. Conversation replies sent with a Yahoo.com email address may trigger the same delivery issues. You can quickly change your profile email in just a few steps.