You spent hours crafting the perfect email. The subject line is compelling, the copy is persuasive, and the call to action is crystal clear. You hit “send,” confident in the value you’re delivering, only to find out it landed in the spam folder—or worse, was never delivered at all.
It’s an incredibly frustrating experience that costs you sales and damages your relationship with your audience.
The immediate impulse is to blame the words you used or the links you included. But more often than not, the problem has nothing to do with your content. It’s about a hidden “technical reputation” that mailbox providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo are constantly judging. If you fail their test, you become invisible.
Your Domain Has a Reputation (Whether You Know It or Not)
Think of your domain’s reputation like a personal credit score. Every time you send an email, mailbox providers perform a background check. They aren’t just reading your message; they’re asking, “Do I trust the sender of this email?”
A good reputation gets you preferred treatment—direct access to the inbox. A bad one gets your messages sent straight to junk. This reputation is built on three key technical records that act as your domain’s ID card.
The 3 Keys to a Good Sender Reputation
These records are not “nice-to-haves”; they are the foundational requirements for modern email. They work together to prove that you are who you say you are.
SPF: The Authorized Sender List
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a public list you publish that tells the world which servers are officially allowed to send email for your domain.
- What it does: It prevents criminals from easily “spoofing” your email address on a basic level. Without it, anyone could send an email that looks like it came from you.
DKIM: The Tamper-Proof Seal
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is a digital signature that acts like a tamper-proof seal on a package. It confirms that the message you sent is exactly the message that was received.
- What it does: It guarantees the integrity of your message, proving to mailbox providers that it wasn’t altered in transit by a malicious third party.
DMARC: The Mailbox Security Guard
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is the security guard that enforces the rules. It tells mailbox providers what to do if an email claiming to be from you fails the SPF or DKIM check. Should they let it in, mark it as spam, or reject it entirely?
- What it does: It gives you control over your domain’s security and provides critical reports on who is sending emails on your behalf.
How to Check Your Domain’s Reputation in Under a Minute
You don’t need to be a technical expert to perform this background check. We built the free Domain Authentication Analyzer to automate this process.
This tool looks up your public records and gives you a simple, easy-to-understand health score for your domain’s email reputation. It’s the first step to understanding why your emails might not be reaching the inbox.
Knowing your score is the first step. But what do you do if your domain has a failing grade? Fixing these records requires a precise technical understanding to avoid making things worse and blocking your own legitimate emails.
Take Back Control of Your Inbox Placement
Landing in the inbox is not a matter of luck; it’s the result of meeting clear technical standards. If your emails are going to spam, it’s a sign that your domain’s reputation is damaged.
Find out your score now with our free analyzer. If your results aren’t perfect, explore our Email Deliverability service to have an expert diagnose and fix the core issue for good.