Each SocketLabs Email On-Demand account has a new “Quality Score” which is now displayed prominently on the control panel dashboard.

The Quality Score is a measure of how well we think your email is performing on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

It is important to note that the score is based solely on factors relating to your email lists, content and practices. At SocketLabs we are doing everything that can be done from a technology perspective to improve your deliverability, however deliverability is also based heavily on the quality of your lists, content and practices. We (at SocketLabs) can not do anything to increase your Quality Score. It is based solely on factors exclusively under your control.

The Quality Score is based on a number of factors including:

How many invalid vs good email addresses you have tried to deliver to
How often your email is marked as spam
How often people complain about your email

The score is recomputed every day and takes into account a variable window of activity extending into the past.

This is a beta feature for now as we are continually working on improving the algorithm which computes the score.

Follow me on Twitter: @johnalessi

(edit 2009-12-16, this feature is now in the production release)

I am very excited to announce that our new suppression list feature is currently in beta. This new feature goes way beyond what is normally thought of when we think of suppression lists. Typically, suppression lists are used to prevent future mailings to addresses that have unsubscribed. Our suppression lists can do that, but also much, much more. Please read on…

This feature will skyrocket your deliverability, and cut loads of administrative work out of the process.

It Will Dramatically Increase Deliverability

How will it increase deliverability? Because, in addition to giving you the ability to specify and block addresses which have unsubscribed, this new functionality will:

• Automatically block email to addresses which have previously hard bounced
• Automatically block email to any recipient which has previously complained about one of your mailings

Two things which will kill your deliverability are 1) repeatedly sending to invalid addresses and 2) sending to people who have complained about your email. Imagine how deliverability will soar when Hurricane MTA Server takes charge and ensures that neither of these things will ever happen again!

This is really monumental release for us because it is the cumulation of so many things we have worked towards over the years. We have had cutting edge bounce handling in Hurricane MTA Server for years. (btw, it is going to get even better soon, but you did not hear that from me) Earlier this year we rolled out automatic feedback loop report processing. Now the new suppression list feature harnesses the power of the bounce processing and feedback loop handling to protect your reputation and catapult your deliverability to new heights.

By maintaing lists of all hard bounce addresses, and addresses associated with feedback loop complaints, Hurricane MTA Server can automatically suppress redelivery to those same addresses.

It Will Reduce Development and Administration

How will it reduce development and administration? Because…

It will no longer be necessary for you to do your own list hygiene – Hurricane MTA Server will do it for you – automatically, and accurately.

That is right. This is fully automatic suppression lists on steroids!

Suppression lists can be set at the account level, globally, shared between accounts, etc… It is all very flexible and very automatic. Suppression lists are stored as standard CSV files, so it is easy to interface them with your existing data. Our suppression lists support both plain text and MD5 encoded addresses for extra security.

This new feature is currently available in our latest beta build.

If you are a SocketLabs customer, and would like to participate in our beta program, please log into your support console and create a ticket, requesting beta access.

If you are not a SocketLabs customer, but would like to be, please contact us to discuss it.

Be sure to check out the video above for a walkthrough.

SSL support for outbound connections has been added to Hurricane MTA Server and can be enabled on a per-domain basis. Using SSL for outbound connections is required in certain circumstances for regulatory or policy compliance, usually in B2B mailings. For example, some institutions that deal with sensitive data (i.e. healthcare, financial) may require that all mail into their domain be sent over an SSL channel.

Using the new features in Hurricane MTA Server, you can customize a Delivery Rule for that domain so that SSL is used when delivering email to that domain. You have two options: try and force. The try option, will attempt an SSL connection to the domain, but if the remote server does not support SSL, it will revert to a standard non-SSL connection. The Force option will force SSL connections to the domain, and if an SSL connection can not be properly established, the email will defer.

This feature is in the current beta, which will be promoted to production before the end of the month.

July 10, 2009 Update: this feature was released into production on June 30, 2009.