Whenever I use PHP to send emails to members of my site, the email ends up in the spam folder for most email providers like Gmail and Hotmail.
When I check the original source in Gmail, I see the following:
Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.236.41.34 with SMTP id g22cs272510yhb;
Wed, 1 Jun 2011 05:38:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by 10.236.77.102 with SMTP id c66mr7228248yhe.303.1306931907131; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 05:38:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: best guess record for domain of transitioning [email protected] does not designate as permitted sender)
Received: by 10.190.5.195 with POP3 id 3mf1156376yxt.72; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 05:38:27 -0700 (PDT) X-Gmail-Fetch-Info: [email protected] 14 mail.mywebserver.com 110 [email protected]
Return-path:
Envelope-to: [email protected]
Received: from mybestsh by s01.next-web.nl with local (Exim 4.69)
(envelope-from )
id 1QRkgT-0000BF-3v
for [email protected]; Wed, 01 Jun 2011 14:38:01 +0200
To: [email protected]
Subject: Your new password
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: MyServer
Reply-To: MyServer
X-Sender: MyServer
I have set up my SPF records as follows:
v=spf1 a mx ip4:xxx.xxx.xx.xx-all
I am wondering what causes the softfail. Any ideas?
Answer
The Return-Path header is empty. This means that during the SMTP conversation, the MAIL FROM command did not specify an email address where bounces are sent. It is the domain from this email address that SPF tests. If there is no email address, a softfail will result.