EmailPal

Deliverability

How to check and improve your domain reputation

What domain reputation is, how EmailPal's authentication and warming affect it, and what to do if placement drops. Age is not reputation; measured conversations are.

What receivers remember

A domain's reputation is the story Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo have about mail from that name: volume, spam complaints, authentication, whether users reply or hit junk.

It is not a number EmailPal invents. It is not Google Postmaster until you have enough Gmail volume to see Postmaster. It is not "the domain is 90 days old." Age helps DNS look settled. Reputation is what happened after that.

EmailPal cannot wipe a history you brought on a BYO domain. We can:

Pre-warmed listings attach the inbox rate measured during that ramp, which is the closest thing we publish to "this name's recent reputation." What "pre-warmed" means.

How to check it

In EmailPal:

  1. Open the mailbox or the pre-warmed listing.
  2. Read inbox rate, warming state, and whether you are in Slow-Ramp or a bounce hold.
  3. Confirm DNS is green on public resolvers.

Outside EmailPal, if you have enough Gmail volume: Google Postmaster Tools on a domain you own. Blocklist checkers are a secondary signal; random listings on brand-new domains are common and often temporary. IP and domain blacklists.

Do not use inflated open rates as reputation. Bot opens are not engagement. Why emails go to spam.

If placement falls

  1. Stop adding volume. More mail into spam trains spam.
  2. Check warming state (Slow-Ramp means we already noticed).
  3. Verify the next list; drop catch-alls, disabled and full mailboxes.
  4. Look at copy and complaint rates, not only DNS. Identical HTML and three tracking links will junk a healthy domain.
  5. Stay inside the cap: 15/day per inbox recommended, 100/day hard cap. Sending limits per mailbox.
  6. If the domain is burned, retire the name. Register new ones or claim pre-warmed inventory. Do not "fix" it with a new IP under the same From: domain.

The full checklist: Cold email deliverability guide.

If Gmail refuses a domain

When Gmail refuses a domain's mail, we pause it (Resting, 7 days, then 14), restart it slowly (Ramping, 2 a day per mailbox, rising by 2 each day), and return it to normal sending when it reaches your limit. You cannot resume it early. If it is refused again after two restarts, the domain shows Replace: claim or register a new name. Warm-up keeps running while it rests, but a good warm-up score does not mean Gmail will accept the domain again.

How to improve it (slowly)

  • Authenticate and leave DMARC at p=reject.
  • Warm until the dashboard flags the mailbox campaign-ready and its inbox rate looks good, or lease inventory that already is. You can send sooner, but you are spending reputation you have not built yet.
  • Send from 5 mailboxes per domain, not 20. How many mailboxes per domain?.
  • Use a secondary sending domain, not the company site.
  • Verify every new list.
  • Keep first-mail copy plain. Keep unsubscribe working in whatever sequencer you use. Open tracking off on new identities, which EmailPal's own sequencer enforces.

There is no 48-hour reputation repair. Anyone selling one is selling a new name.

FAQs

Is a 90-day domain a high reputation domain?

It is not new. It is not automatically trusted for bulk. Age is not what EmailPal's pre-warmed inventory is built on: those are newly bought domains whose mailboxes finished at least 14 days of measured warming.

Should I check blacklists daily?

If you are listed, open a ticket. Random listings on brand-new domains are common and often temporary; do not panic-rotate domains as a hobby.

Can I see Google Postmaster on a pre-warmed domain?

The domain is ours. You see EmailPal's measured inbox rate. You do not get Postmaster admin on a lease.

Will BIMI or a custom tracking domain fix reputation?

BIMI is a logo for high-volume authenticated senders. A custom tracking domain does not erase complaints. Fix the list and the volume.

Need More Help?

Sending limits per mailbox or open a ticket with the domain name.