Avoiding the SPAM folder in Gmail

Hi all

I'm working on a new site with my "web guy" and we are dealing with Gmail sending an auto email to the spam folder. The server automatically sends out notifications to my clients and all mail sites such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Live, etc. all faithfully accept the email as legit, but Gmail sends it to the spam folder. I of course don't want my clients missing the notifications or worse yet think that something nasty is contained in the email.

The email is sent in plain text, it has clickable links back to our site. No graphics, no obvious spam words, no javascript. It is a new domain.

Here is a sample, I have used * to protect the innocent LOL

Yes the XXXXXX is on the outgoing email as we hadn't confirmed the URL yet. I thought the "X's" were a red flag for Gmail so I have copied & pasted this into another email, my Hotmail account, and sent it to my Gmail account, it went directly into my inbox. I don't know if that was a sufficient test but it's all I can do right now.

The domain we are using is not the actual domain, but a "test" instead of a "www", don't know if that makes a difference.

My web guy is out of town and I'm just trying to brainstorm this to get some ideas.

So my loyal Statcounter friends, any ideas?

Thanks

 

Just tell GMail a couple of times that it is not spam (use the Not Spam button at the top of the page when you are in your spam folder). I find that GMail learns pretty quickly, and will soon start sending the email to your inbox.

Or just set up a filter in Gmail so that email from that address is deposited in your inbox.

 

I appreciate the suggestion, but I need to be able to send these out to new clients who may not see or know where to look for the email. I was EXPECTING the incoming email and I thought it wasn't sent. It turned out the SPAM folder is in a drop-down labeled "More". I had several emails in there that I was expecting.

I have had auto email notifications sent out for many years with another site I had and had a very good success rate with all email programs & sites, better than 95%. For years Gmail faithfully sent emails into the inbox, not the SPAM folder.

I'm wondering if we are overlooking something, or something has changed at Gmail in the last several months.

 

I have not noticed any major change in GMail's behavior in recent times. I have had an account for 5 years now, and it has always been extraordinarily accurate in classifying spam emails from regular emails. Unfortunately, misclassifications do occur once in a while, and since I monitor my spam folder on a daily basis, it does not affect me much. I find something in there that does not belong, I just hit the "Not Spam" button and a couple of days later, email from that sender ends up in my inbox automatically.

If you users are not technologically savvy enough to do this, or to create a filter in GMail (which is pretty much the only way to whitelist a from address, it looks like), there is no easy solution to the problem. Take a look at the article below for some ideas:

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/...am-filter-protection-in-gmail-or-google-mail/

 

Yes I know that not everybody thinks to look in the spam folder (it helps when it's visible), but what my desire is, is to create an email that is as nearly spam proof as possible. We've done it before, and we'll do it again :mrgreen:

 

Hi Guy.

A couple of things spring to mind when I read your post - though I'm by no means any kind of expert.
If you're sending them from your domain's email account, it may be that you need to verify that domain in G Webmaster tools and use the G site checks to reassure G that your site is free of malware and spyware (with particular attention to any pages to which you're likely to refer in any outgoing emails). Especially if you're using a temporary domain instead of your usual permanent one.
Just a thought/guess.

 

That is a thought, I will certainly verify the site anyways, so I will see if that does it.

Thanks

 

just my inflated $.02 cents USD ...
I applaud Gmail for sending it to the spam folder. Way too often real spam gets by in my Gmail account and I continually am hitting the report as spam button.

think about it... it's a temp domain sending out emails... sounds spammish to me to even though we know its only a trial for your real website but Gmail doesn't know that, so...

I have no solutions for a true secure internet/ email experience other than to turn off the computer ;-)

 

Your inflated $.02 cents USD is appreciated LOL

 

Well we are getting closer.

We have got the Gmail account to receive the notification in the inbox.
We edited the URLs to represent the temperary domain name,and added an SPF record for teh domain so Gmail can match a list of IPs in the SPF record against the origin of he email.

But we still have one more obstacle, my Outlook picks up my domain mail from a Gmail account. Domain alias I guess you call it. That Gmail account still goes into the spam folder. So the battle goes on.

 

I have heard that GMail uses the number of recipients of an email as one of the criteria to figure out whether to classify it as spam. Perhaps you can change that aspect of the emails and see if that has a favorable impact on the classification.

 

A good point, although these emails are only going out to one recipient.

 

a whole week

and now that we've stared at this subject all week, have you come up with any solutions?

 

Well just 3 days ago I reported that we have now got Gmail to accept the emails to the inbox, just the Google Apps domain aliasing still puts it into the spam folder.

Still working with the SPF records. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will be done with this issue and on to the next :mrgreen: