“It’s Monday. I have some urgent mails to send and all my mails are blocked. No outgoing and no incoming. Please rectify ASAP”, Customer of TROPPUS, via SMS at 10.54 AM, Monday morning.
What a way to start the week!
Since morning we at TROPPUS have been bludgeon with calls from agitated customers that emails are not going out nor coming in. TROPPUS, as usual, was quick in investigating and plugging the problem.
The culprit for this blockage was Mass Mailing. Our investigation revealed a mass mailing activity done by one client has created a problem to all our customers.
So, it is time we took a look at what shared hosting is and how does mass mailing affect a shared hosting environment.
Shared hosting, sometimes called shared services or virtual hosting, is multiple websites sharing the same server, thus reducing the cost for everyone. Shared hosting also means the resources available on the server are being shared amongst several websites. They all share a common factor: Nothing is allocated specifically to each domain.
Even your email traffic is also controlled by the shared resources. So your emails going in and out can be delayed by someone else's mass mailing. Unprofessional Mass Mailing can use up your bandwidth and slow down other shared services.
Conclusion: Mass Mailing is prohibited on Shared Hosting!
Besides, when you send emails in bulk, all it takes is a single recipient to log a complaint against the sender (you). Immediately the IP address of the server will be banned by anti-spam groups (spamhaus), Yahoo, MSN (hotmail) and internet service providers (ISP) which deploy spam filters on their network. This would also affect other customers who is on the same server (same IP address)and would experience bounce emails (due to the IP address being listed as a spammer) and failure to send and receive their emails. This would naturally cause unnecessary disruption of service to other customers on the same server and give rise to tempers and tensions.
“I am not spamming, why am I not allowed to send emails in bulk?”
It is up to your recipient to judge whether you are spamming or not. They may be opt-in subscriber to your list, but they may not like the advertising nature of your emails and can still lodged a complaint against you to anti-spam organisations. The bottom line is, spend extra effort with your list of subscribers to ensure 100% they are perfectly fine with accepting your email with advertising content. This minimise the chance of them complaining against you.
