The next 3 or 4 Let’s Talk sessions are going to be all about reputation. We’ll start with a general overview of reputation and identity, then move on to specific kinds of reputation (IP, domain, URL, content), then we’ll talk about how to create, maintain and repair reputation. Still working on the outline, but I’m pretty convinced this will be at least 3 sessions...
Another way Gmail is different
I was answering a question on Mailop earlier today and had one of those moments of clarity. I finally managed to articulate one of the things I’ve known about Gmail, but never been able to explain. See, Gmail has never really put a lot of their filtering on the SMTP transaction and IP reputation. Other ISPs do a lot of the heavy lifting with IP filters. But not Gmail. While I was writing...
Deliverability and IP addresses
Almost 2 years ago I wrote a blog post titled The Death of IP Based Reputation. These days I’m even more sure that IP based reputation is well and truly dead for legitimate senders. There are a lot of reasons for this continued change. Improved computing power I touched on the increase in computing power in my 2013 post. The power and the complexity of filters in even greater now than then...
Why do we "warmup" IP addresses
IP address warmup is a big issue for anyone moving to a new IP address for sending. I’m constantly being asked how to warm up an IP. My answer is always the same. There’s no right way to warm up an IP nor is there a specific formula that everyone should follow. What warming up is about is introducing mail traffic to receiving spam filters in a way that lets the filter know this is a...
Delivery challenges increasing
Return Path published their most recent Global Deliverability report this morning. (Get the Report) This shows that inbox placement of mail has decreased 6% in the second half of 2011. This decrease is the largest decrease Return Path has seen in their years of doing this report. To be honest, I’m not surprised at the decrease. Filters are getting more sophisticated. This means...
Spamhaus rising?
Ken has a good article talking about how many ESPs have tightened their standards recently and are really hounding their customers to stop sending mail recipients don’t want and don’t like. Ken credits much of this change to Spamhaus and their new tools. Is their increased vigilance pissing you off? If so, your anger is misplaced. They are reacting quite sensibly to market conditions...