Email Policy & Limitations

[Serra]

Originally Posted by famous58

A reasonable and responsible individual will not crash the server, nor send out spam. The HG reply did not say anything about spam notifications, only crashing the server (so let's clarify, do we get suspended for spam notifications or crashing the server?).

Both. See the TOS:

Originally Posted by TOS

Any account which results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended and/or terminated.

You can be suspended for crashing the server or getting the server blacklisted, per the TOS.

I've also been told by HG that accounts that get spam notifications from AOL's feedback system will be suspended for a period of time so that the number of spam reports goes down and AOL does not send out a blacklisting.

Originally Posted by famous58

I'm hosting someone that gets hacked, on a shared server, by a spammer. That spammer sends out a but load of emails and crashes the server. Am I now suspended? Is my client suspended?

That isn't possible. HG limits the number of emails that can be sent out per hour. It is very likely that HG would see the spammer spamming and suspend them before any real damage was done. It should be almost impossible to crash the server on a shared account by sending mail.

Originally Posted by famous58

It seems that this policy is in place to be able to suspend people for abuse, but I can't believe that HG would arbitrarily suspend someone who is a good customer with a clean track record who may get hacked or might have a problem once that could cause an issue (and if they do suspend would reinstate as soon as the problem was rectified).

In the case of a reseller, I believe they suspend your client, not you.

Originally Posted by famous58

If I'm wrong, however, I have a feeling that HG will lose clients over this.

Actually, any custoemr who would be upset by this, should just leave now! If you ever end up on a server that gets blacklisted, I'm fairly sure you'd call for the head of the person who caused it and would cheer when they were suspended! This is something that HG has to monitor very closely because if ONE client on a box is labeled a spammer, the whole box is labeled a spammer and NO ONE can send email to places like AOL, Bell South, Comcast, Time-Warner and a huge list of other companies. It really, really sucks.

Remember, if your account is spamming and HG suspends you, they aren't doing it to punish you, they are doing it to protect their assets and the assets of their clients. If you are truely a good customer, they will help you fix the problem and get you back online.

[mickeychapman]

In the Email policy it states:

"Many of our servers have a 60 pop checks per hour limit per domain. If you go over this you're likely to get a wrong password error message saying login incorrect. Just wait an hour and it will automatically unlock you. to prevent this from happening again make sure to disable auto checking or at least set it to something higher such as 10 minutes."

I was in the process of moving a client over to your hosting service when I realized that since they have 19 email accounts, and auto check their email every 10 minutes, this limit would be reached after 30 minutes, resulting in an error for the next 30 minutes for each person.

Not acceptable! This client is a non-profit organization that uses email to communicate with other non-profits and they will not be happy if I tell them they can only check their email every 20 minutes.

I have not seen this limit on any other hosting companies! Do you have a plan that does not have this limit?

[vtrain]

Originally Posted by mickeychapman

[snip]
I was in the process of moving a client over to your hosting service when I realized that since they have 19 email accounts, and auto check their email every 10 minutes, this limit would be reached after 30 minutes, resulting in an error for the next 30 minutes for each person.
[snip]

I do not think this limits are at domain level. I think they are at account level. But you may open a support ticket and ask.

Vtrain

[mickeychapman]

Thanks Vtrain for the quick reply. It would make a lot more sense to me if it we at the account level, however, I talked to Scott in sales via chat on Sunday, he told me it was a domain level limit.

I think I will open a support ticket as you suggested just to be sure.

Thanks again, Mickey.

[Pitrow]

Originally Posted by mickeychapman

Thanks Vtrain for the quick reply. It would make a lot more sense to me if it we at the account level, however, I talked to Scott in sales via chat on Sunday, he told me it was a domain level limit.

I think I will open a support ticket as you suggested just to be sure.

Thanks again, Mickey.

Keep us informed of what you find out... I've gotten mixed results with the answer also. So far I've never had any one of my domains hit the limit (that I know of) but I'm curious as to what the actual answer is.

[kmaw]

I just use IMAP...

[Serra]

Originally Posted by mickeychapman

It would make a lot more sense to me if it we at the account level, however, I talked to Scott in sales via chat on Sunday, he told me it was a domain level limit.

That simply is not correct. The restriction is placed by cPanel, which is by account.

The exact language from cPanel is:


The number of times users are allowed to check their mail using pop3 per hour. Zero is unlimited. (cppop only)

So, this is per account, not per domain.

[chaloupe]

I approve Serra since I have the same thing in WHM and it is really how it works.

It is per account and not domain

Best Regards,

[rothrock]

Is this policy (200 emails/hour) the same on Semi-Dedicated accounts? If it is now, it wasn't a few months ago when I was forced to get either a Semi-Dedicated or Dedicated server for my one account because of the need to send a few hundred emails within an hour...

[Serra]

The email limits would apply on the semi too. Go to dedicated if you want to escape the limits

[Rotag]

From the policy stated at http://www.hostgator.com/mailpolicy.shtml

Many of our servers have a 60 pop checks per hour limit per domain.

From the policy stated in the "Knowledge Base"

Many of our servers have a 60 pop checks per hour limit per email address.

Note the difference between "per email address" and "per domain" in the two policy statements.

I would have absolutely no problem keeping to 60 pop checks per hour limit per email address limit.

But considering I have a good many email accounts all on the same domain, the 60 pop checks per hour limit per domain limit will be a HUGE problem for me.

Would you guys please rethink these limits?

[mikesmithfl]

Hmm... Any further info about this? Any conclusive involvement from HG staff? The two sources are definitely in conflict.

[Sam]

Support say the limitation is per email account not domain

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by mikesmithfl

Hmm... Any further info about this? Any conclusive involvement from HG staff? The two sources are definitely in conflict.

If you want conclusive involvement, email sales@hostgator.com so that it's in your ticket history.

[foreverdita]

OK, first of all, I have to state that I have been a Hostgator client for years. I set up all my clients on Hostgator and currently run about 15 sites here as well for various clients. They have always had 100% reliability and answer support requests faster than lightning.

I have clients on different hosts, and I can honestly say that Hostgator is by far my favorite.

I completely understand the emailing policy. When I first came to hostgator, I did not read the policies on email and got my first account suspended (whoops) by trying to email a list for a client of over 7,000 users.

Hostgator was very responsive to me during the suspension and very forgiving when i explained my stupidity.

NOW - I currently have two clients hosted on Hostgator. I refuse to move them as hostgator is their home. My ONLY question is this - both of these clients have newsletter subscribers of over 10,000 and they want to send out newsletters more than 3 times a week. UGH!

I don't request that Hostgator change their policy - I am simply asking if there is an alternative service, either through Hostgator or perhaps someone knows of another service that can be used, in conjunction with Hostgator, to handle this many emails.

Not having to deal with this issue until now, I am at a loss. Does anyone have any 3rd party recommendations, or is there a service through hostgator that would solve this issue? Please advise?!

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[Dwight]

Originally Posted by foreverdita

I don't request that Hostgator change their policy - I am simply asking if there is an alternative service, either through Hostgator or perhaps someone knows of another service that can be used, in conjunction with Hostgator, to handle this many emails.

Not having to deal with this issue until now, I am at a loss. Does anyone have any 3rd party recommendations, or is there a service through hostgator that would solve this issue? Please advise?!

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Have a look at www.constantcontact.com We use them, and send a lot of clients there.

[gwyneth]

Originally Posted by foreverdita

NOW - I currently have two clients hosted on Hostgator. I refuse to move them as hostgator is their home. My ONLY question is this - both of these clients have newsletter subscribers of over 10,000 and they want to send out newsletters more than 3 times a week. UGH!

I don't request that Hostgator change their policy - I am simply asking if there is an alternative service, either through Hostgator or perhaps someone knows of another service that can be used, in conjunction with Hostgator, to handle this many emails.

Get one of the small dedis that are on sale for $75 a month.

[chaloupe]

I am using a dedicated server just for newsletter on my side. sending 26 000 per week. Nothing else is on that server.

[gtgeorge]

Originally Posted by chaloupe

I am using a dedicated server just for newsletter on my side. sending 26 000 per week. Nothing else is on that server.

Perhaps you should sell them a little newsletter space to go with thier HG account

[slapshotw]

I was going to say use campaignmonitor.com, but gwyneth's suggestion of getting the unmanaged dedicated for $75/month (it's available when you go to buy, not when you look at the dedicated page) is a better idea as long as you don't mind dealing with and setting up your own ISP feedback loops.

[applewoffie]

Hello..

Since some of you suggesting to use phplist to overcome the limit. Do you guys know if I could just only use the code for my php file. What I mean is that I will not going to use phplist but rather insert this code

MAILQUEUE_BATCH_SIZE - 50
MAILQUEUE_BATCH_PERIOD - 300
MAILQUEUE_THROTTLE - 1

to my php file example in my send_news.php. Is that possible? If so, how?

Thank you.

[kololia]

You have unlimited email accounts but all those accounts together can only check if they have mail a maximum of 60 times per hour??? And how do you control that, pray tell?

Well, I have been having LOTS of problems trying to get set up with gator, so I am not in love with them and I am still within my 45 days .... and this is not endearing me more to them. Good grief!!!

This email stuff is just plain sillly.

[GvilleRick]

You wouldn't think the email policies are silly if someone else on your server was abusing them and causing problems for your site.

[rota919]

Originally Posted by kololia

You have unlimited email accounts but all those accounts together can only check if they have mail a maximum of 60 times per hour??? And how do you control that, pray tell?

Where do you read this?
The mail policy (http://www.hostgator.com/mailpolicy.shtml) states 30 checks per IP per hour not "all those accounts together"

How do they control that?
Every time you access the server in what ever way with whatever application your application sends a $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'], amongst other bits of info, now it simply a matter of adding up the ip's and you have a method to control...

[zcock]

I just signed up with a reseller account a while back and just started moving sites over to it. Just happen to be looking around the form and saw this new email policy.

I just got finished with a live chat session and just confirmed if you have 40 email accounts or users and each one of them check the email within an hour... 10 of them will get the "pasword error message" because they are all behind a firewall using DHCP and one IP address

This is the most restrictive service I have ever seen.

I am now on hunt for another company unless someone can tell me a way around this.