Do you encounter problems with e-mails that you send to your contacts because they arrive in the spam folder or are refused because of spam? Unfortunately, the solution to this is not so simple because we use mail traffic very differently today than it was originally developed for. There may be several reasons why a recipient receives your e-mails as spam or even refuses because of spam. In this article we discuss the most common forms and what you can do to reduce the chances that this occurs.
Most common causes
Word usage
If your mails are refused based on the content, you will get a message about it in most cases, but this doesn't always have to be the case. If you get a response from the receiving server, it will be something like "550 the content of this message looked like spam"This means that the content of your mail contains words or texts that are very similar to spam, the spam filter of the receiving party will then refuse your mail purely based on the content.
Below are some examples of words / topics that may be a reason for spam filters to see your mail as spam. Obviously, the context and amount of the use of the word / subject is partly decisive in this. You can find various websites online that use more extensive lists. Essentially, you have to pay attention to which words and topics you use in your mails and to which you put the emphasis.
- Free
- Discount
- Benefits
- Special offer
- Viagra
- Sexually motivated cases
- Drugs
- Medical treatment
- Order today
- This isn't a spam.
- Sign Up
- Save
Wrong set DNS
It is possible that the receiving party does checks by means of SPF and DKIM, these are DNS records you can manage yourself for your domain. With a shared hosting package and a domain that runs through us, this will automatically be set for you, any changes you need to maintain yourself. Cloud users should carry out the configuration for DKIM themselves, also SPF is under their own management.
To check which points in your mail traffic are worth improving you can send a test email to a test address at mail-tester.com. The result of this indicates which points can be improved, with a simple test email you may get down points because the text is known or such, you can of course ignore that.
The most common points that can easily be solved are those SPF and DKIM records. If, for example, you use your own mail server instead of those of Neostrada, we recommend that you add it to your existing SPF record by adding it to your existing SPF record. This lets your recipient who checks it know that the mail server is recognized to email through your domain. DKIM can also help as an additional means of verification for recipients.
In some recipients, a DMARC Even though this is easy to set it is not bad if it is missing, mail-tester also does not give you a discount. Reason for this is because DMARC is not used very much.
With the combination mentioned above, you can go through the mail tester successfully in most cases. In some cases, there are also points that are about content or formatting. It is advisable to follow those advices even if they do not deduct many points. In a high mail tester score, the probability that mails are seen as spam for technical and substantive reasons is low in theory.
The receiving party blocks your domain
It is possible that the receiving lot one blacklist uses domains that they do not trust. To know whether this is the case, it is best to contact your recipient first or not accidentally put your domain in the spam filter (if he/she has that option), otherwise the host or the email manager may be able to tell you more about it.
In some cases the receiving server also responds to this via the mail delivery system. This may look like "550 Email blocked by..." or "550-Message refused by spam filter".
IP reputation
If you are with us a Cloud / VPS It is possible that the IP Address of your server a certain reputation has been built by receiving parties that works to the disadvantage (or advantage) of receiving emails from your server.
The ip reputation is determined by several factors, such as the content of the average messages, messages that often get into the spam, the total amount of emails sent, messages that are sent to non-existent emailboxes (this is typical behavior of spammers), all of which is used to determine the reputation of your ip address. If a receiving server looks at this reputation, it can determine whether or not to send the mail to the recipient.