Are there white lists for Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail and AOL?

Question

In my website (under development), the members can send messages to each other which are sent directly to their email, now I'm worried that some members can send spam to other members (I have a spam filter but it doesn't give 100% protection as you know), I'm worried that my domain might get blacklisted on Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or AOL which will cause any messages sent from my domain to end up in the spam folder, this is why I want to add the domain of my website to their whitelists (if they exist).

P.S. I don't want to use private messages that members check on the site and I have my reason for this.

Thanks

Answer 1

While there may be whitelists used by those sites, I suspect that they only contribute to whatever scoring system is in use - being on the list won't be sufficient in itself.

The overall controlling factor will be the "reputation" of your site - you need to work to ensure that reputation stays sound.

Unfortunately for your workload, I think this will be an ongoing task, not a one-off.

Answer 2

Your email might not be considered "bulk" because it sounds like it's one->one as opposed to one->many, but these bulk mail help resources might still be helpful:

• Yahoo! Mail Postmaster Help
• GMail Bulk Sender Guidelines
• Windows Live Hotmail Postmaster Services
• AOL Postmaster Website

As Bevan mentioned, your task will be an ongoing one to keep your site clean on various services.

Not sure if you're already considering this, but you can send the email "on behalf of" the requesting user (i.e., set the from and reply-to fields to the user who is sending the message).