Cleaning an email list

[TalkDevelopment]

I have an email list that goes back to 2005. Does anyone know of an opensource software or another free way to clean this email list from fake email addresses, etc?

Most of the only services are so expensive.

Thanks

 

[buyselldoms]

Are you okay FPForum? You just seem to lash out at everyone for no reason whatsoever.

 

[Paul]

The purpose of this thread was to ask for names of services and software that can be used. The OP was not asking for opinions on the usefulness of his data. A single wayward post wouldn't have been a problem, but this is spiraling out of control. Please stop posting off-topic information and opinions. It'd make a great debate elsewhere, but it's distracting from the original purpose of this thread. Feel free to start an additional thread on the matter. I think you've already scared away @TalkDevelopment.

 

[nielsencl]

Boy, posting quality for responses to someone who is asking for help have really gone downhill here! Between people not reading or not understanding what the OP was asking for, to those with their personal opinion that they think are so important that they dismiss what the OP wanted.

On the other hand free advice is often worth what you pay for it.

For what it's worth I will add mine to the pile.

I have seen scripts in the past that will take an email list and validate addresses by starting a SMTP session but after sending the address and having it accepted, the session is dropped before any message is sent. It should be a fast and inexpensive way to validate that an address exists without any risk of spam. The problem is that it doesn't tell you if the email address is really being used any longer. The person could have lost the password, stopped using it because of spam, or died. If you want this and can't find it I can try and help you.

But my advice as a consultant would be to actually use the list and send a message to all the addresses. Wait, I know you have objections. There are a number of ways to do this and not run into problems. But if your return email address is at Gmail or Hotmail, then I would advise against using that. If you have your own domain then I would use that. Using email software that comes with most Linux hosting accounts, you could set up the list and send out a message to help you do what it is you are trying to do (not sure what they is exactly). I would make the message really short and NOT make it opt-out, but make it opt-in and be ready to delete any addresses that don't opt-in or confirm they want to be contacted by you again in the future. The message is crucial and should avoid any possibility of appearing as spam and not an email list confirmation / opt-in invitation to an old forum member.

If you are still scared about the spam thing, I would get a new domain and cheap hosting account and run the list from there after explaining what you are doing to the hosting provider.

Chances are you WILL have issues with a large number of addresses no longer being valid.Most average user seem to change them every few years due to job changes, ISP changes, or to escape from spam. But I have been using the same basic email address since 1999, so there are those that may still have the email email address after "only" 9 years.

 

[Paul]

@nielsencl, half-sending e-mails is a good idea--I hadn't thought of that. You'll at least know if the e-mail exists, and as long as you don't hammer any servers, you probably wouldn't get blocked. Spam filtering wouldn't be a problem. Honeypots might.

It's worth noting that most ISPs put their residential IP allocations in various "no-SMTP" lists. For this to work, you'd have to run the script on a server or at an office, not on your home computer. Otherwise, you'd risk getting rejected immediately, which would yield a false positive--or, worse, your ISP might notice.

 

[TalkDevelopment]

To those that have offered assistance, thank you.

I believe I finally have things under control at least for now.

Just to clarify a bit, I do not usually mail to the entire list at once. I do normally only send emails out to members that have been active with in a certain amount of time.

There are times though emails go out automatically to older members like when someone posts on an old thread or something like that. Many times these posts get members back after years of absence.

I do not want to post the link here but the type of forum it is has a member base that sort of loses interest and then gets back into it. We have many members come back after years and years of absence. it happens all the time and through poling them when they come back I discovered that most of these members still view the site and read the emails. Many just do not log in or have not in a long time. For this reason is was just not wise to throw out those email addresses.

if a member who was very active with a major profile and thousands of posts leaves the site for a few years but then decides he wants to come back we could lose him if there is no email address there for him to reset his password, etc.

At any rate, things are going ok now though it was a major hassle. We only send out legitimate opt in email but these days that is not enough. You can get blacklisted as spam just for not having your domain reverse mapped to your ip. I had to do some major work to get going again including filling out forms with Microsoft, signing up for spam reporting programs and some server and dns work also.

I have been able to remove most of the bounced emails though it is an ongoing process. I have also posted on the site to let members know to make sure they have valid emails.

Thanks again for the help,
Rich

 

[N-A]

GreenArrow with professional installation included would have done all that for you.

 

[TalkDevelopment]

GreenArrow with professional installation included would have done all that for you. :P

That was one of the first solutions I checked out but I never buy a product like that does not have a price easily visible.

 

[N-A]

I was skeptical at first because of this. I've tried both Port25 and GreenArrow. Both do not disclose pricing as it detracts users. I mean, who wants to buy Port25/GA when Exim is free? Serious buyers will inquire. Both systems are in the same league as far as licensing, pricing and operations go, but I find GA more user friendly.

They don't work on commission (so I've been told), so they don't pester you to make a sale if you just ask for the price. This is why I put it in the thread, as I've inquired on monthly, yearly and lifetime licence prices on the various send rates that they have available, which I believe is 3 levels. (By that, once you tell them you don't show interest, they will no longer email or call you [I got one email at the end of the trial asking if I liked it and would like to call in to discuss more]).

I can only speculate that it's not easily visible because there is no "buy now" option as you have to physically sign documents agreeing to use the software as it's either monthly or yearly (though, you can get a lifetime license... but I think that has contracts to go with it), etc. and they also are flexible at pricing and structuring a plan just for you in the beginning.

To anyone else thinking about doing what @TalkDevelopment did, it's well worth the 10-40 minute conversation to have with the sales rep about the product so you can get demo access before purchasing it to see if you need to hire someone to help you run it (GA has authorized companies that they can forward you to) or get to it yourself because you've had practice.

GA literally took me 10 minutes to figure out (it's so uncluttered, unlike WordPress—in fact—if you were to rank the two by being user friendly, GA over WordPress hands down) and a cool option about it is the ability to create an opt-in form. The form takes data X, Y, Z for the storage, confirms email and redirects to a specific 'thank you' page. It returns it in their own HTML code after "designing" it, but you can modify the form to fit just about any subscription widget (or build your own) by modifying the posting URL, text box names, etc. and having the thank you page already setup.

Either way, I'm glad you got this resolved and that others couldn't see past what you were trying to accomplish and/or attacked you. If you need any assistance, feel free to drop me a convo.

 

[Paul]

Given your update, @TalkDevelopment, I would recommend setting up DMARC, if you haven't already done so. It seems to help decrease the number of false positives with all major providers except Yahoo. Yahoo just does whatever the hell they want--which means marking everything as spam.