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Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

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Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#1

Post by _dh54 »

Hi everyone,

I’m at my wits’ end. Regardless of how many hoops I jump through, gmail refuses to deliver my email. Everything that comes from my email server is marked as spam. My email server is correctly configured with the following:

* reverse DNS record

* starttls transmission

* DMARC

* 2048 bit DKIM key

* strict SPF policy

* clean IP reputation

Despite doing all of this correctly (gmail confirms I pass all of these tests) it still puts my messages into spam. I’ve used googles postmaster’s tools and the only thing they say on my domain is that they have no data. As far as I can tell I am being punished for being a low traffic / small mail host.

Is this legal? Is this the basis for a potential anti-trust lawsuit? If my only sin is not using a large established mail gateway, is that fair?

What are HN’s opinions on / workarounds for / solutions to this? I can’t be the only one dealing with this issue.

As a workaround I’m considering figuring out a way for postfix to use a mail gateway (like sendgrid) when the destination domain is gmail.com.

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#2

Post by smt88 »

It's not fair, it is legal, and there's nothing you can do about it. You will never be able to talk to a human at Google about this. Even paying customers of their all-important ad business can't really talk to helpful humans about things.

The only solution is to support US elected officials who want to break up Google. There is no solution for you in particular.

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#3

Post by phillipseamore »

Could there be some content in the emails that triggers spam filters? Are the usernames or domain something that might trigger it? Is your server time correct?

It might also be that many users have marked emails from the domain as spam (I know of that happening with competitors signing up to newsletters etc. just to mark them as spam).

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#6

Post by jonifico »

Gmail algorithm doesn't depend entirely on those factors you mention, it's a message per message basis, the problem is that people are marking you as spam. You have to check your emails and detect what's triggering the spam filter inside the content, give it some time to send the next one, and clean your list urgently, even confirming your users if they want to be in your list.

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#7

Post by CyberRabbi »

jonifico wrote: post #6

Gmail algorithm doesn't depend entirely on those factors you mention, it's a message per message basis, the problem is that people are marking you as spam. You have to check your emails and detect what's triggering the spam filter inside the content, give it some time to send the next one, and clean your list urgently, even confirming your users if they want to be in your list.

I don’t think this is true. The only people I sent email to are my friends or people with whom I do business. This server is for personal use.

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#9

Post by Ir0nMan »

smt88 wrote: post #2

It's not fair, it is legal, and there's nothing you can do about it. You will never be able to talk to a human at Google about this. Even paying customers of their all-important ad business can't really talk to helpful humans about things. The only solution is to support US elected officials who want to break up Google. There is no solution for you in particular.

This is the answer. It's really unfortunate but it's no longer worth while to do a roll-you-own email solution unless you are willing to accept some delivery issues. The big players control the game and you have no say in the matter.

Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?

#10

Post by danamit »

Totally okay, otherwise how you'd prevent spam? trust should not be a given, it should be developed over time.

I don't see how anti-trust apply to this, the barrier of entry to hosting emails is not too high, its just not low enough to be done in an evening, that's like saying needing to buy car washing machines to have a car washer is an anti-trust issue.

Now considering the email going to spam, try different email clients.

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