Why is my G Suite IP blacklisted and emails going to spam?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Litmus shares that maintaining a clean email list by regularly removing inactive or invalid addresses is crucial. Sending to non-existent addresses can lead to blacklisting and negatively impact your sender reputation.
Email marketer from HubSpot explains that you can improve email deliverability by using a familiar sending name and address, segmenting your lists, creating engaging content and testing before sending.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that with G Suite, you're on a shared IP, so if someone else is spamming, it hurts everyone on that IP range. This is why warming up your IP and domain is essential.
Email marketer from SendPulse explains that implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records helps authenticate your emails, proving to ISPs that you are a legitimate sender. This improves deliverability and reduces the likelihood of being marked as spam.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that avoid using spam trigger words in your email subject lines and body. Also ensure your HTML is clean and not bloated and your sending to people who requested the emails.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that keeping your bounce rate low is essential for good deliverability. High bounce rates tell mailbox providers that your sending practices might not be good, and that can affect your reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that warming up your G Suite IP address gradually is crucial. Start with a small number of emails and gradually increase the volume over time. This helps establish a positive sending reputation.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that using a shared IP address, as is common with many email providers including G Suite, means your sending reputation is influenced by other users on that IP. Poor sending practices of others can negatively affect your deliverability.
Email marketer from Email Deliverability Consultant Website shares that proactively monitoring your IP and domain reputation is crucial. Use tools like Google Postmaster Tools to identify deliverability issues early and address them before they significantly impact your sending reputation.
What the experts say6Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Google IPs are often considered 'spam sewers' and that filters are working as intended if cold emails are being filtered. The problem might not be the sending IP if the emails are going to spam in Hotmail.
Expert from Spam Resource shares that one of the primary reasons for G Suite emails going to spam is the use of shared IP addresses. Since multiple users share the same IP, the actions of others can negatively impact your sending reputation, leading to deliverability issues.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Project Honey Pot lists IPs that are mailing to harvested email addresses. This could be due to the sender or another sender in a shared environment.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that a Project Honeypot listing indicates scraping addresses from websites.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that using GSuite for sending any kind of promotional email is generally not recommended. The IP addresses are shared, and maintaining a good sending reputation is difficult. Consider using a dedicated email service provider (ESP) instead.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that when sending email through G Suite, the sender doesn't have a dedicated IP, but shares IPs owned by G Suite. IP blocklistings are not the cause of cold emails going to the spam folder, but the domain reputation is. The sender's model is flawed.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that a shared IP address used by Google Workspace means your email sending reputation is affected by other users. If their emails are marked as spam, it can impact the deliverability of your messages.
Documentation from Spamhaus explains that they are an international nonprofit organization that tracks spam and related cyber threats like phishing, malware and botnets, provides dependable real-time anti-spam protection for Internet networks.
Documentation from MXToolbox explains that common causes for IP blacklisting include spam complaints, sending to invalid email addresses (spam traps), compromised accounts sending spam, and poor email authentication practices.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains that a high spam rate reported by Gmail users directly impacts your deliverability. Aim to keep your spam rate below 0.10% to avoid filtering issues.