Email Policy & Limitations

[GatorJustin]

For your information:

http://www.hostgator.com/mailpolicy.shtml

Respond here with any questions.

-Justin

[sonic]

It is mentioned:
---
Mailing Lists Rules
1. Anytime you're sending a message no matter how large your e-mail list is you must throttle it. We recommend you throttle it to at the very least sending 1 email every 6 seconds. If the mailing list software you're using does not allow you to throttle you must switch to something else.
---

Should we throttle when sending mail using sendmail, through for example a php script?

sonic

[GatorBrent]

if its more than 10 emails yes

[hotdog]

So you go against what live help state - great

So apart from just changing the rules, how about some ideas on how we can throttle the mail, as I'm sure most account holders on her would use php mail() in some way or another.

Also can you please rewrite, or at least explain the mailing list rules.
In section 1 the example was 500 being a burden on the server, yet in section 2 you state any mailing list over 900 emails is to be only sent off peak (whenever *eastern time M-F is).
My understanding is if my mailing list is say 750 I can send it whenever I want and don't have to throttle it, but if it's 900 or above has to be sent at *eastern time BUT if it's not a mailing list and just a lot of email it has to be throttled to recommended 1 email every 6 secs. Sounds obsured but thats how it reads.

* how far is eatern time M-F off GMT ?

How do I email the owner of Host Gator? I asked sales/live support many questions before signing up, email being one of them and after several posts in the forum and now this it seems I wasn't told the truth as they got it all wrong.
Like you, I'm just trying to run a business but with the goal posts being moved from under me without warning is very hard. I need to know what is correct and what's not, no offense to the guys that run this place but I can't trust anyone anymore, need to hear it from the gators mouth so to speak.

Cheers

[sonic]

Originally Posted by GatorBrent

if its more than 10 emails yes

So, if I need to send 11 emails, then I have to throttle.
OK, so I have to send 1 email every 6 seconds (at least) till all 11 emails are sent. I use sleep function in my php script to send first email then sleep 6 seconds, then send second email, then sleep 6 seconds, etc. I need 66 seconds to send all 11 emails (plus script execution time, which normally is less than a second). BUT the script would stop at 30 seconds because max_execution_time=30 in php.ini (escape server)! I cannot send 11 emails, can I?

So, if I want not to get suspended, I need to change my scripts, make sure the maths are correct, then pray that nothing "extreme" happens, like for example 11 of my site users request their login details in a 6 second interval.

I believe you can see my point. Throttling, in my opinion, would cause more problems than it is supposed to solve

Cheers,
sonic

[fuzzfree]

You can set the time limit of your script by .htaccess or in the php script with set_time_limit(). This sets no limit to a script.

But again it is silly to use this. Imagine you have 100 clients and to send a newsletter from Postnuke or osCommerce - you would wait 600 secs/10 min!!

[hotdog]

I want to send an email to all my members (1800 and growing) about an security issue, under these new rules I doubt I would even beable to contain it to off peak time and the resources would infact increase, running newsletter through a while loop from the database would have one database connection and 1800 emails, this new way would have 1800 database connects and 1800 email connections. I could just leave the database connection open, but is one big security risk.

For the record my normal bi-monthly newsletter is only 400 or so

[fuzzfree]

1. Anytime you're sending a message no matter how large your e-mail list is you must throttle it. We recommend you throttle it to at the very least sending 1 email every 6 seconds. If the mailing list software you're using does not allow you to throttle you must switch to something else. We recommend phplist which can be found in your control panel under fantastico

PHPlist can be scheduled to send a specified amount of email per period
-->> find in config.php the lines

PHP Code:

# define the amount of emails you want to send per period. If 0, batch processing
 # is disabled
 define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE",199);
 #HG allows 200 per hour !!
 # define the length of one batch processing period, in seconds (3600 is an hour)
 define("MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD",3600); 


BUT again we have problem - messages are not throttled !!!
(BTW HG this s****! Although we are not allowed to send more than 200 emails per hour we must throttle them, too !!! So, we would send the 200 emails in 200 * 6 sec = 20min. TOO MANY RESTRICTIONS !! 200 emails/hour would be enough - we understand this to prevent server overload! But throttling - that's not good at all !!!! PLEASE CHANGE THE POLICY!)

SOLUTION
Found this on PHPlist forums. Haven't tried yet, seems very good !

http://www.phplist.com/forums/viewto...light=throttle

[hotdog]

The phplist throttle thread (thanks) could be usefull for mailing lists etc but the nature of my web site works around emails and I can't throttle the other emails, if I do I could be working the server 24/7 (when the site gets busier).
Some emails wouldn't turn up when they should, isn't a way to run a business.

Looks like I have to find another host, have never seen this limitation of email on any host and most use the same data centers.

[fuzzfree]

HG please look into this matter and policy!

If we need to throttle any email this is uncomfortable and annoying for anyone. We must change all software we use!

I think no other host has this limitation!

I have for a client a small website with a music band - there will be soon to register let's say 100 fans in the phplist. If my customer has to throttle these 100 emails and 'run crons' ... this is not easy for him and for any client!! This is HARD! You make the easy things too hard.

I think you should have only the restriction for 200 emails per hour!

What about the clients in the oscommerce? If a shop has only 20 clients and the store owner has to send a newsletter then the domain will be suspended !!!

With this policy we must change the software we use!! OR better change host!!!

PLEASE look into this matter - this is serious. We would not like to see our accounts to be suspended because of more 10 mails in the row!!

AND WE WOULD NOT WANT TO CHANGE HOST!!! HOSTGATOR HAS BEEN AMAZING !!!!!!!!!!
(AND NOW WITH THE 4GB - WOW!!)

[Rendus]

What's truly great about this is, if I run a moderately busy forum, and a few members have email notification of new posts on, I could be suspended for -ONE- post in -ONE- thread - I can easily see a thread with 10-20 unique posters generating 10-20 notification messages.

[WhiteWidow]

This has me worried!

I've had a reseller account with HG for less than two weeks and I haven't yet 40% finished moving over from my old hosts.
Everything at HG has been 100% fine for me - I've found the server to be fast (Isuzu), HG support have been really helpful and despite some comments on the HG Forums, I have had no complaints at all.

With this max mail issue I think I'll keep one separate reseller account elsewhere until I'm a month or two in :-(

I fully understand that the server load has to be considered for ALL our sakes and I understand the mailman issue as being difficult when mass-mailing takes place at peak times. The POP lock on 60 POP checks per hour (per e-mail address) is cutting it close though IMO - if I am to move my existing customers over to HG and impose additional POP3 rules on their accounts, I'm going to lose customers FAST :-(

I know that many people use their e-mail accounts (via Outlook or OE on dial-up) to write e-mail offline and then go online to send - is there an SMTP lock on too?

A 200 hourly POP e-mail limit, per domain, is acceptable IMO - but then we have to assume that people don't use forwarders - if they have UCE flooding in (as I do on some domains: 'parked', 'add-on' or not!) and a forwarder set up to catch the spam, I could easily reach 200 per hour :-(
I'm then being penalised for others' spam surely?


I think I need to read the TOS and AUP with a close eye to detail :-(

Where was that thirty-day money back guarantee? ;-)

[GatorBrent]

Everyone is over analyzing...

It is simple if you crash the server = suspended
if you do not crash the server = we do not care

Everyone begged for some type of policy so we gave it. But it all comes down to two things...

if you crash the server = suspended
if you do not crash the server = we do not care

Some things cannot have exact policies and this is one of them, but due to many complaints we gave it. You cannot put guidelines on something that has infinite possibilities. There is no way for us to know what will be a problem and what won't be ahead of time. The best advice we can give is to throttle when sending to a large list.

If you have been doing something for a while and have not had a problem chances are you'll never have a problem. The only real monitoring we do towards it is when a server is crashing and we must respond.

[David]

Thank you. I have been waiting to see what HG's response would be. I was getting worried there for awhile. I mean really - our company has 5 people in it mailing to at the very most 5-10 people at a time usually less, and at one point I was thinking this is ridiculous to think we would have to throttle our email. We don't have a newsletter (yet) but will at some point in the near future. I guess if we get to the point where we're sending to many people then we might need to do something.

Hopefully common sense will prevail in handling these type of matters (both on HG's end and with customers).

David

[hotdog]

So what your saying is we're stuffed no matter what we do.
It is very common for web sites to be the victim of spam, spammers use fake site addresses all the time, if anyone of else fall victim to this we are suspended, no warning, no help, no nothing, just straight out suspened.
Spammers don't care about throttling, they pump out millions of emails and am sure a lot bounces back.
I remember being a victim of this several years back on hotmail, all the bounce backs filled up over 2mb of space in a very short time. Hotmail knew it wasn't me who sent the spam so never suspended me.
Thats just the spam, I wonder how many people on here use something like matts formmailer, what say the next version has a bug ... suspended (I dont use the script)

I'd still like to get the email address of the owner of Host Gator please and hear his/her words on the matter, my experience so far todate has been a mess.
Live help(sales) tell me one thing (no limit -have it in writing), GatorJustin tells us there is now rules with limits and restrictions etc and now GatorBrent is telling us not to worry, just carry on what we were doing - which I'm sure in a lot of cases is breaking the rules set out by HostGator and cause for suspension as it is now there in black and white.
I'm sure the excuse "But it was on the forum we could ..." wouldn't go over very well.

[hotdog]

Another thing, why suspend the whole domain when you can just suspend the email side of the domain ??
I would like to ask that if you find this happening (mass mailings) to not suspend the site first, instead I suggest sending an email to the primary off site email address and give them 12-24 hours to change it before you route it null. Which would suspend the email only and wouldn't cause so many people getting pissed.

[Stef]

Originally Posted by hotdog

I'd still like to get the email address of the owner of Host Gator please and hear his/her words on the matter, my experience so far todate has been a mess.
Live help(sales) tell me one thing (no limit -have it in writing), GatorJustin tells us there is now rules with limits and restrictions etc and now GatorBrent is telling us not to worry, just carry on what we were doing

FYI: Brent is the owner of HostGator.

Stef.

[esl]

3. You are not allowed to mail to a mailing list you were given or purchased. This is spamming because they never agreed to you personally sending them mail. We do not care and how you justify it this is spam and will result in termination of the offending account.

What does that mean?

[Stef]

Originally Posted by esl

What does that mean?

Some companies can sell you a list of email addresses from people that could be interested in the services or products you're selling, distributing,... so you can add them to a mailing list.
Since these people did not opt-in for your list, but rather their addresses were given to you by a 3th party without their agreement, this is considered spamming.

Stef.

[esl]

Okay, thanks.

[LandonCowling]

Wow, it will talk along time to send newsletters now ....

[esl]

I don't have any news letters. I think I am going to start one if it doesn't break the rules. Haha.

[Port33]

When using php mail(), is it helpful to add a list of recipients as BCC’s? This causes fewer calls to mail() but is it really any less of a load on the server than one e-mail per address?

[hotdog]

Originally Posted by Port33

When using php mail(), is it helpful to add a list of recipients as BCC’s? This causes fewer calls to mail() but is it really any less of a load on the server than one e-mail per address?

No difference as it still has to send the same amount of mail, if anything it would put more load on the server as the connection stays open until all the BCC's are sent where as single mails are open and closed

[Surf-Hut]

Originally Posted by hotdog

No difference as it still has to send the same amount of mail, if anything it would put more load on the server as the connection stays open until all the BCC's are sent where as single mails are open and closed

Agree. They want you to throttle anything over 10 addresses, doesn't matter if you use TO or BCC. If you have a large mailing list, your better off using a 3rd party to do your mailings and avoid the headache, custom coding and the possiblilty of getting "the boot".