The short answer
Email providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo have become very strict about proving who a message really came from. If your domain does not carry the right proof, your messages can land in spam even when they are completely legitimate. The good news: this is fixable, and setting it up is our job, not yours.
The three checks every message goes through
When your email arrives at someone's mailbox, their provider quietly runs three checks. Each one hides behind a technical acronym, but the ideas are simple.
- SPF is the guest list. Your domain publishes a public list of the servers that are allowed to send mail on its behalf. If a message shows up from a server that is not on the list, it looks like a gatecrasher and gets treated with suspicion.
- DKIM is the signature. Every message your domain sends is stamped with a signature that only your domain can produce. The receiving provider compares it against the copy on file, like a bank teller checking a signature card. A missing or mismatched signature is a red flag.
- DMARC is the instruction sheet. It tells other providers what to do with a message that fails the first two checks: deliver it anyway, put it in spam, or refuse it entirely. It also lets you receive reports about anyone trying to impersonate your domain.
A message that passes all three has proven it came from an approved sender, was not altered on the way, and follows your domain's stated rules. That is what modern inboxes want to see.
Why mail that worked fine last year gets filtered now
In early 2024, Gmail and Yahoo began requiring this kind of authentication for bulk senders, and the whole industry has tightened up since. Mail that used to slide through on reputation alone now needs the paperwork. Nothing changed on your end, and you did nothing wrong; the rules of the road changed.
Other things that can trigger the spam folder
- Messages that are mostly links or images with very little text
- Attachments that scanners consider risky, such as zip files
- Recipients who previously marked your messages as spam
- Sending a sudden large burst of email from an address that is normally quiet
What we handle for you
We configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for the domains we host, so the authentication side is normally already in place. If a specific recipient keeps filtering your mail, we can check the records, review what their server reported, and correct anything that has drifted.
If your email is landing in spam, open a support ticket and tell us which address you send from and roughly when it started, and we will investigate.
