My Outgoing Gmail Gets Marked as Spam
January 13, 2009 2:40 PM   Subscribe

Why are my outgoing Gmail messages ending up people's spam folders?

No less than four times in the last two weeks I have had people tell me that they discovered an older email that I had sent them in their spam folders. These people are in different locations and using different employer-provided email systems. The emails I sent were normal business and casual emails: "Hey lets get together and talk about X" sorts of conversations.

What is going on and how can I get it to stop? Thanks.
posted by LarryC to Computers & Internet (7 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe an update to a popular corporate spam filter caused it? I don't think there is much you can do. You don't control the corporate spam filters, and your friends probably aren't the mail administrators! Make sure they white list your address, but that probably only affects the local Outlook filter and not the server based filter.
posted by COD at 3:15 PM on January 13, 2009


Is there a link in your signature or did you send a link in the emails? My work account sends any emails containing links, from addresses outside the company, to my junk folder.
posted by juva at 3:20 PM on January 13, 2009


It might have something to do with this.
posted by kaudio at 3:42 PM on January 13, 2009


So the emails made it through, they were just filtered on their end to a spam folder?
It's probably getting marked as spam by the receiver's email filter. If those employers are running the same email software or have the same spam filter subscription, that may cause it. Basically, the software has a set of rules it uses to determine whether or not your message is spam. Something must have tripped it. An attachment, a keyword, a certain length, etc. This happens unintentionally more often than you think.

If they're using Outlook (and probably other software too) they can add you to their "safe senders list", which is under "Actions" in the menu toolbar. Unfortunately, this has to be done on their end, not yours.
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 3:44 PM on January 13, 2009


Response by poster: Is there a link in your signature

Yes--could that be it? My signature contains a link to my professional blog. The thing is though that I just typed in the URL and Gmail automatically linkified it. Do I just have to remove it entirely?
posted by LarryC at 12:10 AM on January 14, 2009


Do I just have to remove it entirely?
In my case, that solved the problem; but you could try removing the hyperlink in the URL.
posted by juva at 1:14 AM on January 14, 2009


Response by poster: OK, I have removed the link. Unfortunately I have no way to know immediately if that solved the problem.
posted by LarryC at 10:51 AM on January 22, 2009


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