This morning I located a bulk email application form for Yahoo! It doesn’t appear as robust as the program that the AOL postmasters have put up for applying to their Whitelist but I’m glad to finally find one!

Some recommendations before you apply:

1. Be sure you have reverse DNS lookup enabled on the IP Address you’re sending from. Let Yahoo! know the IP Address that you’ll be sending from in the submission form (in the additional area).
2. Be sure you have a feedback loop for the ISP to reply to messages that have issues (e.g. abuse@yourcompany.com) and set an email header for “Errors-To:” at this email address. Let Yahoo! know your feedback loop email address in the submission form (in the additional info area).
3. Be sure to add your full company address, city, state, zip, phone number and fax number in the additional info area as well.

If you’re sending out high volumes of emails, I’d highly recommend you get on the whitelist of Yahoo! and AOL. A whitelist does not guarantee that you make the inbox, the content can still get you in a spam filter. A whitelist won’t stop you from getting blocked, either, but it will give you a little more insurance that that won’t happen.

The best defense from not getting blacklisted is to remove bounced email addresses from your list, always gain permission, and always send the email in a timely manner – corresponding with when you asked permission. I’m not a deliverability consultant – but I have a good friend who is and helps keep me straight on this stuff!