Ask HN: I set up my own domain for my email and it's all going to SPAM

[jazzkin]

I set up my email to work with my personal domain through Fastmail. So the email is [e-mail] and it seems that my emails are going to spam in gmail/hotmail/more when I try to email other people. The domain has been mine for several years and not used so it has not previously been used for Spam.

The question is, how do I get out of having my own email labeled as spam by the big providers?

[gvb]

Have you implemented DKIM/SPF/DMARC? If you have not, that is a first step.

Are you sending from a "consumer" network IP block (cable modem or DSL)? If so, that's going to be big points off (probably not since you are sending through fastmail).

In my limited and somewhat dated experience, some email service providers are very aggressive in blocking email senders. The better class of these had contact information and would respond to requests to be whitelisted. Some email providers blocked emails and had no contact information to request white-listing. For them, my only recourse was to send emails to them through an email forwarding service (I used Dyn at the time, Dyn apparently sold their email forwarding business to DuoCircle).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail

[bks]

Brad from DuoCircle here, if you need any help with sending let me know we have a few services that can help. We can smarthost your SMTP traffic on the outbound or we can forward your inbound email to the right destination.

My $.02 on the conversation is to double check your IP on some of the RBL services http://www.anti-abuse.org/multi-rbl-check/ to check to see if you are listed for any reason.

And then send a test email to https://www.mail-tester.com/ and check their scores. You SHOULD be able to get a 10/10 with a blank email as long as your authentication aligns.

Feel free to email me and I would be happy to help.

[jazzkin]

I will have to look through what settings Fastmail are using but this is a good starting of point. It's not from a "consumer" network IP block but I will look into the details that you have provided and see if it changes anything.

Thanks a lot, always good to have a starting point.

[djsumdog]

I wrote this a while ago with the same frustrations:

https://penguindreams.org/blog/how-google-and-microsoft-made...

I have DKIM, SPF, DMARC and reverse DNS all setup. I've moved to a provider that disallowed 25 in/out and you have to specifically request it be unblocked.

I still have this issue. There is no real way around it. Microsoft and Google's spam prevention algorithms are very over-aggressive and will push out anyone with a personal e-mail server.

Each time you send an e-mail to a new person you've never e-mailed before, contact them on Twitter/Facebook/Reddit/Discord/whatever and tell them you sent them an e-mail and to mark it "not spam." They'll be able to receive your e-mail from here on out (just don't include any links).

[jazzkin]

Thanks a lot I will check it out.

[through]

Good question. I do not know but I would guess that your domain hosting company and the range of IP addresses it uses could be blacklisted, or, the email provider has a well known data signature that vendors associate with spam bots and again, blacklisted. I would be interested to know myself. Best guess; perhaps change email provider or hosting company and see if situation can be replicated. Ensure your email addresses have not been compromised. Good luck.

[jazzkin]

You're making some valid points and I could try to do it trough my own servers or some other provider but it feels like Fastmail should be fairly reputable but I could be wrong.

[jrnichols]

who is actually sending out the mail? a server that YOU administer or are you simply hosting everything with Fastmail? (that is how it sounds.)

[djsumdog]

..and it what?

[jazzkin]

It's all going to peoples SPAM-folders when I try to contact people.