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You are here: Home>> Tutorial>> Report Cards
This page contains detailed information to help you understand the AOL report card process as well as what to do with the report card information.
What is a report card?
You may receive a report card from AOL if spam complaints from your domain exceed a particular threshold. A report card is only an indication that your domain's mail stream has exceeded a pre-defined complaint threshold; it is not necessarily indicative of a spam problem. We send a report card to every domain that exceeds this threshold, regardless of what type of mail is sent. We hope that it may be useful to help identify potential issues. See an example of a Report Card. Information:
- Report card information is generated from the aggregated statistics of all IPs matching a given reverse DNS.
- Report cards are sent to abuse and postmaster of the domain.
- Report cards encompass a 24 hour period.
I received a report card, what do I need to do?
Set up a feedback loop:
When an AOL member clicks "this is spam" on an email sent from one of your IP's, this is considered a "complaint". A feedback loop notifies you of these complaints. Read more about our feedback loops. Make sure you are following AOL's Technical & Bulk E-mail Guidelines:
Read about our Guidelines which contain information on our policies as well as our e-mail standards.
Ensure consent for bulk-email:
All bulk e-mail to AOL members must be solicited, meaning that the sender has an existing and provable relationship with the e-mail recipient and the recipient has consented to future mailings from the sender.
Report Card Example
From: postmaster@aol.com [mailto:postmaster@aol.com]
Sent: 9/6/2005 9:45:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Subject: AOL email concerns for domain name
Dear domain name,
You are receiving this message via our automated "Report Card" process because our available data indicate that in the last 24 hours your domain's [insert domain here] mail stream has exceeded an inbox complaint rate of 0.30%.
This email is only an indication that your domain's mail stream has exceeded a pre-defined complaint threshold; it is not necessarily indicative of a spam problem. We send a report card to every domain that exceeds this threshold, regardless of what type of mail is sent. We hope that it may be useful to help identify potential issues.
For additional information please visit our Postmaster website, where one can find a more detailed explanation of how the Report Card system works, AOL's technical requirements for sending email to us, AOL's best practices guidelines for bulk-mailers, and more.
This is an automated notification. Replies to this email will not be seen.
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