Getting rid of the via at Gmail

There was a question submitted today about the verification process at Gmail.

even though SPF authentication is passed, a via is added to mail sent from a webserver. The return-path is not the same as the visible from field, but there’s no way for me to change it. Does that mean I won’t be able to get rid of the via?

This actually ties in to some research Steve and I did a few months ago about how and when Gmail is displaying the “via” in their interface. We generated 90+ different emails with various From: addresses, Return-Path: addresses and passing and failing with both SPF and DKIM.
After crunching all the numbers down, I created a table with all the conditions.
All of the conditions we measured
As you can see, there were only a very few conditions that generated the “via” display in the Gmail interface. In cases where there was any domain match between the visible from: and the return path, either the exact domain or a subdomain, there was no “via” displayed, even if authentication failed.
But, when we look at the cases where the domain in the Return-Path is unrelated to the visibly displayed From, then we start to see the cases where Gmail displays the “via.”

Matrix looking at when and what via is displayed
Only when there is a domain mis-match and failing authentication is a via displayed.
So the answer to your question is as long as the webserver is a different domain than the visible From: address Gmail will display a via. You may be able to have no via if you provide no authentication, but Gmail does what it calls “best guess” SPF so even that may not work for you.
 

Related Posts

Spammers and Google+

I have a google+ account, but don’t check it very often. There seems to be a significant amount of noise on the feeds and trying to keep up with all the people who added me to circles was driving all the real mail out of my gmail inbox.
This morning I realized the noise just got louder. It seems spammers are buying very, very old lists scraped from usenet and inviting everyone on those lists to join them on Google+. Yup, an address of mine that has not been used in 7 or 8 years and is not very publicly associated with me got a Google+ invite from someone I’ve never heard of before.
I know there have been a lot of complaints about spammers abusing Google+. I thought it was possible, but I didn’t realize they were actually purchasing email lists to load into Google and spam people.

Read More

Authentication Cheat Sheet

There are a several approaches to authenticating email, and the different authentication methods have a lot of different settings to choose from (sometimes because they’re useful, other times just because they were designed by committee). It’s nice that they have that flexibility for the complex situations that might benefit from them, but almost all the time you just want to choose a good, default authentication approach.
So here’s some short prescriptive advice in no particular order for “how to do email authentication at an ESP well” without the long discussions of alternative approaches and justification of each piece of advice.

Read More

Email marketing OF THE FUTURE!

ISPs are continually developing tools for their users. Some of the newer tools are automatic filters that help users organize the volumes of mail they’re getting. Gmail released Priority Inbox over a year ago. Hotmail announced new filters as part of Wave 5 back in October.
All of these announcements cause much consternation in the email marketing industry. Just today there was a long discussion on the Only Influencers list about the new Hotmail filtering. There was even some discussion about why the ISPs were doing this.
I think it’s pretty simple why they’re creating new tools: users are asking for them. The core of these new filters is ISPs reacting to consumer demand. They wouldn’t put the energy into development if their users didn’t want it. And many users do and will use priority inbox or the new Hotmail filtering.
Some people are concerned that marketing email will be less effective if mail is not in the inbox.

Read More