I have several clients who are using GMAIL accounts and they are unable to receive email from me.
It does not matter what subject or message body I use.
I am sending all outbound email through a smart relay so that I don’t get my personal IP blacklisted.
MX Toolbox
says my MX records, and SPF are set up correctly.
says my inbound smart host may be an open relay, but it is not blacklisted.
says my DMARC is set up, but my “Quarantine/Reject policy is not enabled”? Senderscore
says my MX records, SPF, and my SSL certificate are setup correctly.
I am NOT getting any bounceback messages.
I NEVER send bulk email from my Axigen server (that’s what MailChimp is for).
They ARE receiving emails that I send via MailChimp, just not when sent via Axigen.
How are they blocking me? By IP? By Domain?
And How do I know for sure why/how they are they blocking me?
What do I need to change? Who do I need to bribe?
So frustrating.
I could bet that the problem is related to DKIM setup for your domain. Have you followed the steps mentioned in our docs here?
Beside sending to your own Gmail account and checking the message headers for any hints for delivery issues you have observed you may use an online tool that is checking if your domain’s DKIM setup is valid by receiving from you* a test message - for example here or here.
*my advice is to create for this reason a new account on your domain and remove it afterwards so there will be no chances to spam you back.
I’m sure you don’t have to “bribe” anybody. You just have to take some time for fixing this issue
I made some changes to my DMARC and SPF as per an article I read about ReachMail (my outbound smart host relay). I am waiting to see if that resolves the issue.
One thing I have experienced with Google is that DNS has to respond quickly.
If DNS responses are too slow, or not available, then into the junk bin the message goes.
Google did publish a response time requirement but I forget where.
This problem can be caused by your server/cloud service provider that blocks SMTP related ports. In my case, I use Vultr that blocks the SMTP ports by default and I can’t send email to the outside world. I also didn’t receive the bounce-back message because the email actually hasn’t been delivered. The solution, customer can open a Support Ticket for unblocking and verification. So, you may try to ask your service provider too.
