Stop sending newsletters and website mail with a yahoo.com address as the sender. Send from an address at your own domain, publish the records that approve your mailing service, and resend to the addresses that bounced.

A newsletter that came back

A small business sends its monthly newsletter through a mailing service, as it has for years, with the owner's yahoo.com address as the sender. This month's send came back with a long list of bounces.

Many of the bounced addresses belong to regular readers who opened every issue last year. The bounce notices mention a policy, and some mention DMARC.

Nothing changed at the business. The change was at Yahoo, and it affects every message that claims to come from a yahoo.com address without passing through Yahoo's own servers.

What Yahoo changed last week

Late last week, Yahoo published a new instruction for its domain, using a standard called DMARC. Receiving mail servers read it when a message arrives showing a yahoo.com address as the sender.

The instruction says that a message claiming to be from yahoo.com, which cannot prove it came through Yahoo, should be rejected. Many large mailbox providers follow such instructions, Yahoo among them.

Before the change, the instruction only asked for reports, and such messages were delivered as usual. Now they are refused at the door, and the sender gets a bounce.

Why the mailing service fails the check

Mailing services send from their own servers. A service can prove who it is, but it cannot prove it is Yahoo, because only Yahoo's servers carry Yahoo's permission and signature.

When the receiving server compares the yahoo.com sender with where the message really came from, the two do not match. Yahoo's instruction then decides what happens next.

Yahoo's own servers apply the same rule, so the newsletter now fails to reach subscribers who read their mail at Yahoo.

Other mail that claims a Yahoo sender

Newsletters are the most visible case. The same rule catches other messages a business may not think of as email marketing:

The first is the quiet one. When a customer with a Yahoo address fills in the form, the message to the business may be refused, and the bounce goes to an inbox nobody reads.

Your own domain as the sender

The fix is to send from an address at the business's own domain, the one its website uses. A mailing service can be given permission to send for that domain.

That permission is published in the domain's settings: one record lists the mailing service as an approved sender, and another holds the key for the signature it adds to each message.

With both in place, the newsletter passes the checks that a yahoo.com sender now fails. Replies go to the domain address, or to wherever the owner prefers to read them.

What happens to the Yahoo mailbox

The Yahoo address can stay for personal mail. Mail sent from Yahoo's own website or app still passes, because it comes through Yahoo's servers.

What changes is that anything sent through another service, a website or a mailing list, should carry the domain address instead.

An owner who likes reading everything in the Yahoo mailbox can have the domain address forward there. Incoming mail is not the problem; the sender line is.

A worked example

A turkey farm near Salmon Arm raises birds on pasture and sells whole turkeys and cuts at the farm gate, with pre-orders for the holidays and a monthly newsletter about what is ready.

The newsletter had always gone out from the owner's long-standing Yahoo address. This month's issue, announcing spring orders, bounced from many regular readers, including those on Yahoo.

The farm already owned a domain for its website but had never used it for email. A mailbox was created on it, and the host added the records for the mailing service.

The issue was sent again from the new address, only to those whose copy had bounced, with a line at the top explaining the new sender.

The website's order form was changed to send from the farm's domain too, with each customer's address set as the reply address so that answering still reaches them.

Contact forms on your own site

Check how your website's forms send mail. Many put whatever address the visitor typed into the sender line, which now fails for every Yahoo customer.

A form should send from your own domain's address and place the visitor's address in the reply line. Pressing reply still answers the customer, and nothing claims to be Yahoo.

Test it by filling in the form with a Yahoo address of your own, then with one from another provider, and watch whether each message arrives.

Telling readers about the new sender

Readers who know the old address may not recognise the new one. Say in the first issue from the domain that the sender has changed, and why, near the top rather than at the foot.

Ask them to add the new address to their contacts. Some mail programs treat a sender in the address book more kindly, and readers will know it is you.

The counter-case

An owner who only writes one-to-one emails from Yahoo's own website or app is not affected. Those messages come through Yahoo's servers and pass the check.

For a very small business just starting out, a free address can serve for that kind of personal correspondence for a while.

But anything sent in bulk, or by a website, needs an address at the business's own domain. That is also the address customers expect from an established business.

Moving the newsletter to your own address

  1. Read the bounce notices for mentions of policy or DMARC.
  2. Create a mailbox at your own domain.
  3. Add the records that approve your mailing service.
  4. Change the newsletter's sender to the new address.
  5. Resend the issue to the addresses that bounced.
  6. Fix the website's forms to send from your domain.
  7. Tell readers about the new sender.

Step three is what makes the new address trustworthy to other servers. Without those records, mail from your own domain can be doubted much as the Yahoo address now is.

When the mailing service suspends the account explains why every send is watched for bounces and complaints, and how to answer a review.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my newsletter suddenly bouncing?

If it is sent through a mailing service with a yahoo.com sender, Yahoo now tells receiving servers to reject it, because the message did not come through Yahoo.

What is DMARC?

A standard that lets a domain publish instructions for mail that claims to come from it but fails its checks. Yahoo's instruction for yahoo.com now says reject.

Can I keep using my Yahoo address?

For personal mail sent through Yahoo's own website or app, yes. Newsletters, website forms and anything sent through another service need an address at your own domain.

What records does my domain need?

One that lists your mailing service as an approved sender, and one holding the key for the signature it adds. Your host or mailing service can supply both.

Are website contact forms affected?

Yes, if they put the visitor's address in the sender line. A Yahoo customer's enquiry may be refused. Send from your domain and put the visitor's address in reply-to.

Should I resend the newsletter?

Only to the addresses that bounced, from the new domain address, with a line at the top explaining the new sender so readers recognise it.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Newsletter still sent from a Yahoo address?

Tell us which domain your website uses, and we will set up a sending address and the records it needs.

Start a Conversation