If you have a new email server you have to do domain warmup. That basically entails sending out emails to show ESPs like Google that they aren't spam. I did this at a previous job, we would have email lists of millions of people and have a monthly plan where the first day we send emails to 1000 users, second day 2000, until at the end of the month we send to all. We'd get blacklisted sometimes and then have to apply to be whitelisted. It is not easy.
Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#12Same problem here. Small mail host on my own domain.
Everything is set up perfectly, mail-tester.com gives it 10/10, and last week Gmail suddenly starts hard bouncing emails for one day and delivers to spam folder after that. Three days later everything is back to normal.
How? Why?
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#13From what I've seen gmail follows user patterns than all this technical mumbo jumbo.
So for a small business owner even 1 person hitting the spam button can be a kiss of death for deliverablity (and I know people irl who think hitting spam and delete are the same thing ).
Basically long story short, if you send 100 emails and 10 people open your email and click on something there is a high probability that the remaining 90 are also going in the primary inbox. Otoh if 2 people were to click the spam button then high chances are rest 98 are also going to spam and soon enough you'll be branded as such.
Its why inbox warmup services are so popular nowadays. While I disagree with such practices in theory as most often they are means to abuse filters, your case seems legit and so you may have some luck with that.
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#14Have you checked https://postmaster.google.com/?
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#15Have you checked https://postmaster.google.com/ ?
Yes, it says it has no data on my domain.
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#16From what I've seen gmail follows user patterns than all this technical mumbo jumbo. So for a small business owner even 1 person hitting the spam button can be a kiss of death for deliverablity (and I know people irl who think hitting spam and delete are the same thing ). Basically long story short, if you send 100 emails and 10 people open your email and click on something there is a high probability that the remain…
Completely unique email from a new domain that has never mass emailed anything gets put into the spam immediately. It’s a very small chance anyone has ever clicked spam on my email.
If it’s a matter of the domain being “warmed up” then I basically have no chance. This is unfair.
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#17From what I've seen gmail follows user patterns than all this technical mumbo jumbo. So for a small business owner even 1 person hitting the spam button can be a kiss of death for deliverablity (and I know people irl who think hitting spam and delete are the same thing ). Basically long story short, if you send 100 emails and 10 people open your email and click on something there is a high probability that the remain…
Completely unique email from a new domain that has never mass emailed anything gets put into the spam immediately. It’s a very small chance anyone has ever clicked spam on my email. If it’s a matter of the domain being “warmed up” then I basically have no chance. This is unfair.
> This is unfair.
Yes it is very unfair. Gmail is basically incentivizing you to send thousands of mails or use hacks like inbox warmups. The same happens for SEO when you have to care more about backlinking and keywords than actual content.
Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it. It's how things are at the moment :/
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#18Same problem here. Small mail host on my own domain. Everything is set up perfectly, mail-tester.com gives it 10/10, and last week Gmail suddenly starts hard bouncing emails for one day and delivers to spam folder after that. Three days later everything is back to normal. How? Why?
Most likely, activity on your IPs or IP blocks you can't see. Spam filters use a kind of 'neighbourhood reputation' as well as info about specific domains.
Unfortunately, the case where you have one good but very low volume sender surrounded on all sides by high volume spammers is very difficult to handle for spam filters, no matter how well designed they are. And, programmers who self host mail on cheap VPS systems are by far the most likely to encounter this problem.
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#19pay for a mail warmer service
Re: Ask HN: What to do about Gmail blocking my email?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely unique email from a new domain that has never mass emailed anything gets put into the spam immediately. It’s a very small chance anyone has ever clicked spam on my email. If it’s a matter of the domain being “warmed up” then I basically have no chance. This is unfair.
> This is unfair. Yes it is very unfair. Gmail is basically incentivizing you to send thousands of mails or use hacks like inbox warmups. The same happens for SEO when you have to care more about backlinking and keywords than actual content. Unfortunately there is nothing you can do about it. It's how things are at the moment :/
> there is nothing you can do about it.
I can speak up about it. Others can too. We don’t have to live under these conditions.