Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? Print

Email landing in spam is one of the most common hosting and business email issues. It does not always mean your email account is broken. In many cases, spam placement is caused by a mix of DNS records, sending reputation, email content, recipient filtering and previous mailbox behaviour.

Modern mail providers such as Microsoft, Google, Yahoo and business spam filters make their own decision about each message. They check who sent the message, whether the sending server is authorised, whether the domain has a good reputation, whether authentication records pass, and whether the message content looks suspicious.

Common reasons email goes to spam

• Missing or incorrect SPF records.
• DKIM not enabled or failing.
• No DMARC policy.
• The sending IP has poor reputation.
• The domain has recently sent spam or bulk mail.
• The mailbox was previously compromised.
• The message contains suspicious links, attachments or wording.
• The recipient has marked similar emails as junk before.
• You are sending too many similar emails too quickly.

What to check first

1. Check that your domain has a valid SPF record.
2. Check whether DKIM is enabled for your email service.
3. Check your DMARC record if one exists.
4. Send a plain text test email with no attachments or links.
5. Ask the recipient to check whether your address has been blocked or filtered.
6. Check whether your mailbox has recently sent unexpected messages.

Best practice

For business email, we normally recommend using proper authentication records and avoiding shared hosting mail for high-volume or business-critical sending. Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are often stronger long-term options because they are built specifically for business email delivery and user management.

When to contact support

If multiple recipients are reporting spam placement, or if emails are bouncing, open a support ticket with the sender address, recipient address, time of the message and any bounce/error returned.

Need help?

Open a support ticket directly from within your GetHosting.online customer account. Phone support is also welcome on (+44) 01457 337 247. For international contact numbers, please see our contact page.

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