Mass hard bounces at aol.com begining 2010/05/27

TJ Spinks

Recently the recipient domain aol.com performed a mass deactivation of email accounts it deemed inactive. This action was noted in the Postmaster Blog for aol.com and began 2010/05/27.

The action taken by the recipient domain resulted in hard bounces being returned when email targeting these accounts was sent. The Convio Email product will mark records as Bad (Hard Bounce) upon receipt of 2 successive hard bounces with no intervening action on behalf of the recipient.

Convio clients targeting recipients at aol.com likely will have noted an increase in the number of hard bounces returned for the domain out of line with normal hard bounce rates. The increased hard bounce incidence will generally persist over the course of at least two mailings targeting the same list. The records as stated previously will be marked Bad (Hard Bounce) upon receipt of the second hard bounce for each record targeted.

Reviewing open rates for the domain for the same mailings will reveal that open and click through rates for the domain aol.com remain steady despite the increase in hard bounces.

The hard bounces returned by the recipient domain are legitimate as the accounts no longer exist.

http://postmaster-blog.aol.com/2010/05/27/increase-in-invalid-recipients/

-- TJ