convincing gmail it's not spam...

[AndyL]

Stupid google...

Having an issue as of last week - seems gmail has flagged the emails from my website's scheduling function - as spam...

Emails come from an email address that is on my contact list... I've tried creating filters, to ensure they end up in the inbox, flagged important and starred...

But they still end up in spam folder.

It's rather important that they go into my inbox, not spam folder - is there a way to accomplish this that I'm missing? clicking not spam on them, trying to create filters for them, isn't working...

I realize it's the 3rd party emailing that's the problem - but there's no real way around that... So how do I assure gmail I want to receive these?

thanks in advance

[jaylo]

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/9008?hl=en

Legitimate mail is marked as spam

If you find a message wrongly classified as spam, you can unmark the message. Just select the message, and click the Not Spam button that appears at the top and bottom of your current view. Unmarking a message will automatically move it to your inbox.

If you find that some senders' messages are consistently being mislabeled as spam, you can prevent this by:

Adding their email addresses to your Contacts list. Gmail will deliver messages from members of your Contacts list to your inbox, unless we know with high confidence that they are spam.
Some messages sent from contacts which are very clearly spam can be sent directly to your Spam label. More importantly, in some cases messages from contacts will not be sent to Spam but will be marked with a red warning banner if the content is suspicious - for example, your friend's or contact's account has been compromised and used to send phishing messages.
Creating a filter so the messages are never sent to Spam.
If you're sending to Gmail users and are seeing your messages marked as spam, please review our Bulk Senders guide.

[AndyL]

I started with adding email to contacts list...

I've spent a week un-spaming them - yet that's where they still end up.

And I've set a filter to important and star them in inbox - but they never get there.

(Yes I google too :D)

This is why I ask here; because its driving me batty...

[toor]

Adding the sender to contact list has always worked for me, perhaps double-check the address that the emails come from? Maybe you've added the Reply-To, instead of the From address, or something?

The next step would be to configure your "3rd party emailing" as correctly as possible: SPF record in DNS, matching DNS forward/reverse hostnames if possible and maybe even DKIM.

Are you able to modify the contents of the message? Does it currently look very "spammy", like one line of text and a URL?

When you're looking at the message in Gmail, at the top right where the time/date/star is, under the dropdown is an option to "Show original" which lets you look at the email's headers. Don't paste it here, but you can send it to me or some techie, or run it through a header analyzer which may give you valuable hints as to why Gmail is marking the messages as spam.

Edit: also make sure the source IP is not blacklisted!

[A790]

Originally posted by toor
Are you able to modify the contents of the message? Does it currently look very "spammy", like one line of text and a URL?

YES HE CAN MODIFY IT, NO IT DOES NOT LOOK SPAMMY.

When you're looking at the message in Gmail, at the top right where the time/date/star is, under the dropdown is an option to "Show original" which lets you look at the email's headers. Don't paste it here, but you can send it to me or some techie, or run it through a header analyzer which may give you valuable hints as to why Gmail is marking the messages as spam.

Edit: also make sure the source IP is not blacklisted!

CHECKED TO ENSURE IT WASN'T BLACKLISTED. IT'S NOT. \
Since I host it... lol

[toor]

Gmail is extremely picky: you'll need the SPF record for sure, most likely DNS hostnames and if that doesn't work, the friggin DKIM too.

[ga16i]

Originally posted by A790
\
Since I host it... lol

Since you host it where?

Serious question. I've had problems in the past with email sent from mail servers on Shaw connections. It's not just a Shaw thing either, it's a somewhat widespread blockage of email originating from servers residing on the dynamic pools from major ISPs.

Since they've gotten cheap and crazy, there's also lots of blocking of things coming from Amazon AWS IP's.

[A790]

Originally posted by ga16i


Since you host it where?

Serious question. I've had problems in the past with email sent from mail servers on Shaw connections. It's not just a Shaw thing either, it's a somewhat widespread blockage of email originating from servers residing on the dynamic pools from major ISPs.

Since they've gotten cheap and crazy, there's also lots of blocking of things coming from Amazon AWS IP's.
I host his website and e-mail on my server.

[ga16i]

Originally posted by A790

I host his website and e-mail on my server.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear with the question. Where does this server reside? Is it in a data centre somewhere serviced by some sort of business Internet connection? Or is it connected to the Internet via Shaw / Telus. I've had similar problems with spam filters with email sent from a server on a Shaw connection (both residential and business packages).

[UndrgroundRider]

Originally posted by ga16i
Is it in a data centre somewhere serviced by some sort of business Internet connection? Or is it connected to the Internet via Shaw / Telus.

Looks like they're using KnownHost.



Originally posted by AndyL
Stupid google...

Having an issue as of last week - seems gmail has flagged the emails from my website's scheduling function - as spam...


Originally posted by A790

I host his website and e-mail on my server.

Anytime you send e-mail from a block of IP's utilized by a host that provides VPS you will receive a high spam score. Spammers frequently spin up VPS instances and use them to send off bulk e-mail. Even Amazon has this problem. The best way around it is to use a smarthost.

Additionally you should setup the SPF records for the sending domain. I just checked your domains and it doesn't look like any of them have those configured. For this situation you could probably do just the SPF records and it would fix the problem, since GMail does support SPF. Some other mail servers do not support SPF though and instead rely on blacklists. In that case the only solution is to use a smarthost.

[A790]

Originally posted by UndrgroundRider
Anytime you send e-mail from a block of IP's utilized by a host that provides VPS you will receive a high spam score. Spammers frequently spin up VPS instances and use them to send off bulk e-mail. Even Amazon has this problem. The best way around it is to use a smarthost.

Additionally you should setup the SPF records for the sending domain. I just checked your domains and it doesn't look like any of them have those configured. For this situation you could probably do just the SPF records and it would fix the problem, since GMail does support SPF. Some other mail servers do not support SPF though and instead rely on blacklists. In that case the only solution is to use a smarthost.
I have a guy on contract that is supposed to be managing this kind of stuff but it looks like he's dropped the ball. It's hard to find good help these days... damn.