
Learn why a message ended up in your spam folder - cleverjake
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/learn-why-message-ended-up-in-your-spam.html
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sudonim
We've been setting up email infrastructure using sendgrid on a dedicated IP.
The domain it's emailing to is a new domain as well. We've got that domain set
up with google apps and use it to send email to people without issue.

We did a mailing to a few select people on our new mail server. For the 20 or
so people using gmail that received the mailing, those who had never received
an email from colin @ newdomain had the email go to spam. Those who had
received a message from colin @ newdomain had the email (from a different
user) in their inbox. Anecdotally, it seems gmail highly values a previous
email from that domain, but only for that one recipient.

Email is tricky. We're sorting through the issues of sending from a new IP and
new domain. We're learning that email sending is like a credit score. No score
is as bad as a crappy one.

~~~
cypherpunks01
Email is a headache! Here are a couple tools I use to verify SPF records, DKIM
records, etc:

<http://www.openspf.org/Tools> and
<http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html> and
<http://dkimcore.org/tools/dkimrecordcheck.html>

Also, you might learn about warming up an IP address for mail sending if
you're going to be pushing volume:
[http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/get-
started/sending-p...](http://docs.sendgrid.com/documentation/get-
started/sending-practices-limitations/warming-up-your-ip-address/)

Sendgrid's reputation checking and interface for seeing and clearing bounces,
spam reports, etc. are extremely useful too.

I imagine you already know all this, but others may not :)

~~~
sudonim
In our case, gmail was deciding the email was spam. As a rsult it doesnt get
reported to sendgrid. It makes sense from googles point of view. If they
reported it to the sender it would be easier for spammers to learn how to work
around it.

~~~
Silhouette
> If they reported it to the sender it would be easier for spammers to learn
> how to work around it.

Of course, it would also mean those of us sending legitimate e-mails that get
canned by these ever-more-aggressive spam filters know that someone did not
receive the information they asked us for so we can do something about it.

Silent failure breaks e-mail. It is irresponsible, and the damage due to not
getting a legitimate message through can be far greater than the damage due to
letting a spam through (which you wouldn't be anyway, the spammer would just
know they're not making it).

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pasbesoin
Now this blog template does not even produce content via Google cache or text-
only cache, when Javascript is disabled. I guess I'm done reading items
presented in the newer Blogger templates.

~~~
Drbble
It is also totally unusable on mobile: If you swipe to the side (a common
action to check if the page is displayed at fit-width zoom level) , a
different article loads, because someone at Google can't tell the difference
between a blog and a book.

~~~
jbellis
I deeply regret allowing greader on android to update to a version that
(unknown to me) contained that "feature."

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victork2
Oh my god, what an horrendous design, it made my poor old PC cringe in despair
with all the javascript to load!

I went to my SPAM folder, all excited, hoping to find some cool
math/programming stuff, but it was just a plain boring message: _Its content
is generally found in Spam messages_. Ah... that's a downer...

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duck
I was excited to see this since just last Friday about half (~2500) of my
Gmail subscribers didn't get my last Hacker Newsletter issue since it went
straight into their spam folder, but it doesn't seem to provide enough
information to really _learn_ why it ended up there.

~~~
ra
FWIW I received last Friday's with both DKIM + SPF intact with a PASS.

Maybe your DNS was unavailale for a short period of time during the delivery?

~~~
duck
Not sure, I guess that could of been the case? I need to look into it more.
Thanks for the info!

------
there
"It's similar to messages that were detected by our spam filters."

How is that helpful to anyone?

~~~
powrtoch
I was thinking the same thing. It would be really interesting if it went into
details about which aspects of the message were considered spam-evidence, and
how strongly they weighed in the decision. That might not be a particularly
_useful_ feature, and Google might consider the specifics of its spam filter
to be trade secrets, but it would sure be interesting.

~~~
andrewpi
Unfortunately, I think such information would be too helpful to spammers.

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ma2rten
I have been browsing though my spam filter:

For some message it says "It contains content that's typically used in spam
messages.", e.g. a newsletter from amazon.de.

For other it says "It's similar to messages that were detected by our spam
filters." e.g. the AWS newsletter or a status update from Tuenti.

I wonder what the difference is.

One message from facebook said "We could not verify this is actually from
facebook.com. Be careful clicking on any links." But I am sure it was real,
because it contained an actual status update. It's strange that they put into
the spam box, because they could have also put it in my inbox with a warning.

------
badclient
wow - what is up with their blog layout design? What happend to the simple
google blog style?

~~~
plinkplonk
It is not just the blog style. Every Google product has been ruined by the UI
changes. Google Groups is practically unusable now as is Gmail. As for search,
pg said it best in his essay

"Google used to give me a page of the right answers, fast, with no clutter.
Now the results seem inspired by the Scientologist principle that what's true
is what's true for you. And the pages don't have the clean, sparse feel they
used to. Google search results used to look like the output of a Unix utility.
Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might
happen."

In general, UI "designers" seem to be running amok at Google, with little or
no management oversight. Or maybe there are too many managers pushing this
stuff, I don't know. What I do know as a user is that Google is at the lowest
point in its history from a usability perspective.

~~~
reneherse
Yes, it's amazing that the product of so many brilliant people can be so
unpleasant to use. Must be a structural problem; an organization where design
is given little authority or cultural value.

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cmelbye
I really like how they reveal this information when it comes to sorting email
into regular inbox and Priority Inbox. It's really cool and useful to see why
Gmail put a particular email into my priority inbox.

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gregable
I looked over at my spam folder, found one of the emails that was filtered due
to me marking a similar message spam, noticed that it was probably a mistake
on my part and fixed it. Previously, there is just too much to pick through to
find those cases so I never bothered looking in my spam folder. Small, but
nice!

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rickmb
I'm still waiting for the Gmail team to explain how Google Analytics mail
regularly ends up in my spam folder.

