Hello folks,
Yesterday we learned that one of the mail server IP addresses which we use for sending emails to Webervations users about their reservations was placed on a "spam blacklist”. This can happen for a number of reasons – sometimes it is automatic, but sometimes it is because someone forwarded an email to a spam tracking service which they think is spam, and which can then trigger the blacklist.
Once an IP address gets on a spam blacklist, it can cause email providers (i.e. the folks that manage your email accounts) to block or filter out legitimate emails. Unfortunately, as Russ mentioned, this is a fact of life in the world of email. Even though we do everything we can to follow the proper rules around sending emails, sometimes this sort of thing happens and the best we can do is fix it right away.
We literally send tens of thousands of emails out every day to innkeepers to keep them up to date on their reservation activity – whether it is requests, confirms, or even inventory notifications. Emails from us to innkeepers that are not directly related to their guest operations are a VERY small percentage of the emails we send – so as you might guess we are a pretty big target when it comes to getting on spam lists.
We were successfully removed from this blacklist around mid-day yesterday and all emails should be going through now. Our IT folks are also working hard to see what else can be done to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future. One change we did make on Webervations today was to stop sending automated "status” emails that were going to anyone who is using a third-party property management system with Webervations. These emails simply indicated when an update to Webervations from your PMS was processed – and some innkeepers were getting them every 30 minutes of the day, every day! Frankly, these emails can look like spam and it’s something that Webervations has been doing for many, many years and which goes against a lot of the "anti spam” rules that exist today. By stopping these emails we are helping to ensure that much more important emails (such as reservation booking notifications) get through.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we were working through this problem and will do everything we can to make sure we avoid this in the future.
John