Most email service providers use complex anti-spam filters. These filters usually determine which email is SPAM based on their experience and practices. Some of the most common reason for emails to end up as SPAM are:

The originating domain name – your domain – is on a blacklist

If your domain name has been blacklisted, this will cause issues with email delivery and unfortunately can’t be controlled, or avoided from our end. If your domain is blacklisted, you would normally receive a response / bounce message stating this. However, you can also check if your domain has been blacklisted here…

https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx

Important

Ensure you check your domain / URL, as opposed to your servers IP address with us. This is due to the fact we relay all of our emails through a service called MailChannels, avoiding the issue of messages not being delivered/being delivered as SPAM through blacklisted IP addresses.

However, if your domain is blacklisted, then you would need to find out the reason behind this, then resolve as a matter of urgency to avoid your messages hitting your client’s SPAM filtering.

The mail server’s IP address is blacklisted.

If your servers IP address has been blacklisted, then the receiving mailbox may consider your message as SPAM. This is a particularly common problem in shared hosting environments, as your IP address is shared with multiple users (some of which may be the cause of a blacklist).

Our Solution

This is a common problem where shared hosting is concerned. As such, we have opted to provide you, and your clients with access to a facility called ‘MailChannels’ which is a premium SMTP relay. All emails are routed through MailChannels automatically, instead of routing ‘from’ the servers IP addresses.

The recipient mail host might require additional validation, such as the existence of SPF or DKIM for your domain.

There is an incredible service online, which will help you diagnose if this is the cause of your emails hitting SPAM…

https://mail-tester.com

You will be provided a temporary email address – just send a message over to the email address provided to run the test. The results will inform you whether the issue is relating to SPF under the ‘Authentication’ section of the report. Note: when using mail-tester.com please ensure you enter some valid content in your message being sent, to ensure the score isn’t negatively impacted due to missing / SPAM related content.

Custom anti-spam filters applied by the recipient email host might also end up rejecting an email based on its contents (subject, body, attachments, etc.).

This issue would need to be addressed by the recipient, to ensure the contents of your emails are no longer filtered.

Diagnosing why a message has been received as SPAM

If you are still unsure as to why your client / recipients are receiving your messages flagged as SPAM, kindly ask them to provide you with the email headers for the email received.

Important

When raising a support ticket regarding your outbound messages being received as SPAM by a 3rd party, please ensure you also provide the details of the email, such as…

Email From:

Email To:

Subject:

Time / Date:

You must also include the email headers, as explained above for us to be able to attempt to diagnose the cause for the message being received as SPAM.

Please note, however, that not all providers will store sufficient detail within the email headers themselves and may need to be raised with the 3rd party / recipient provider for further information.

Setting up your email is easy when you have the right host by your side. If you need a reliable partner to help you resolve email issues and provide expert support, check out our hosting services.