Gmail showing authentication results to endusers

A bit of older news, but worth a blog post. Early in August, Gmail announced changes to the inbox on both the web interface and the android client. They will be pushing authentication results into the interface, so end users can see which emails are authenticated.

These are not deliverability changes, the presence or absence of authentication will not affect inbox delivery. And the gmail Gmail support pages clarify that lack of authentication is not a sign that mail is spam.
This isn’t a huge change for most ESPs and most senders. In fact, Gmail has reported more than 95% of their mail is authenticated with either SPF or DKIM. Now, Gmail does a “best guess” SPF – if it looks like an IP should be authorized to send mail for a domain (like the sending IP is the same as the MX) then it’s considered authenticated.
It’s good to see authentication information being passed to the end user.

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