Why the email i send are detected as spam from Google, Yahoo, MSN etc?

Here are the example headers of an email sent to a Google address.

Received-SPF: pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of www@mywebsite.com designates mywebsite-ip as permitted sender) client-ip=mywebsite-ip;
id E8A63322; Tue,  8 May 2012 08:43:52 +0000 (UTC)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=simple/simple; d=mywebsite.com; s=dkim;
t=1336466632; bh=Z7xJudGc3lcz/jf/0hPLSOBFSCA07D0D3oJwgQbIhn4=;
h=To:Subject:Date:From;
b=ZSc4A/aUALtqhVe88Nc5QDaWanKMOZgs3PEed99P42amZEhrp3Q3Qi1F90KJ9MuzK
 ZBzMmvycM8cSXdUno8mJZhjtPU4YEzgP3BetLZImlZC8Z0H84YVc9FGimRyt5LlOVI
 Zb13gvWL4ihO7ABSte29AewocINOtumktA+hZ5UQ=
To: "test" <*@gmail.com>
Subject: Verifica indirizzo email
X-PHP-Script: _/index.php for my-ip
Message-ID: <1336466632.4fa8dcc8e42e8@_>
Date: Tue, 08 May 2012 08:43:52 +0000
From: "mywebsite.com" <accounts@mywebsite.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Ciao test, grazie per esserti registrato a mywebsite.<br /><br />Segui que=
sto link per validare il tuo indirizzo email:<br /><br />http://mywebsite.=
com/user/validate_email?a=3D1-35ae755914

I send about 20 email/day; no big deal! The IP i send from is not blacklisted. The reverse ip is correct.

DKIM and SPF checks are passed.

What could it be?

cedivad

Posted 2012-05-08T09:10:16.037

Reputation: 292

1You might have to contact their support for a true answer, but I'm sure its the total amount/quota of emails from that same address per day / month through their servers... Doesn't it depend on the recipient to determine if it is spam or not? – Zero Stack – 2012-05-08T09:17:14.373

Hi, this comes from a dedicated server that i control (i have the server from a few months to now), so the number of email sent every day is really 20. Maybe a little more, like 30, but this is the order of magnitude. I'm not sending other emails other than the validation ones (e.g., i don't send notifications like Facebook); so the number of email sent isn't the problem. Maybe i should change the simple HTML used to a plain text format, that might help. I was used to send a daily newsletter to 4000 registered users without any problem, so i really can't understand whats wrong. – cedivad – 2012-05-08T09:21:58.313

(comment too long) i also don't think that their support is willed to help, why should they? they are Google, not me ;) – cedivad – 2012-05-08T09:22:24.697

1For a start, you are sending invalid HTML (no doctype, no title tag), and -- apparently -- invalid Message-ID, which must have a domain name after the @. – user1686 – 2012-05-08T09:35:42.013

HTML in newsletters has a title tag? This is completely new to me. Anyway I will convert to plain text. I also never bothered about message id. Why should now start? I will check those things, thanks! – cedivad – 2012-05-08T09:43:09.613

1@cedivad: It will not be displayed, but as I recall, the <title> tag was required in HTML documents, even if it was empty. Okay, it's unlikely that a spamfilter would implement complete HTML validation, but it won't hurt. A basic HTML 5 document would be <!DOCTYPE html> <title></title> <p>Ciao test, grazie... <p>Segui questo... <p>http://mywebsite.com/... – user1686 – 2012-05-08T11:26:59.503

You are right, it's just that it doesn't make any sense to me! Thanks anyway. I've converted to plain text, but i'm still in the spam inbox. Maybe i should pay amazon and it's mail deliver stuff. – cedivad – 2012-05-08T11:29:44.080

FYI the SPF pass is a "best guess pass" not a "real pass" which would state domain of <X> designates <IP> as permitted sender without the phrase "best guess". – None – 2013-05-18T16:04:51.203

if you send a few, but very similar emails in a short period, you will be marked as spam. – John Jameson – 2013-05-20T20:19:17.200

Why the email i send are detected as spam from Google, Yahoo, MSN etc?

Answers