Hunting For Spam?

Gmail uses Google’s innovative technology to keep spam from swimming into your inbox.

Is Google serious? Innovative? Crazy?

Most folks will tell you, “why bother?” Getting into the inbox with gmail penguin filtering is futile, impossible, nuts. Getting into Fort Knox is easier. I mean, Google can’t even inbox their own messages, what makes you think you can?

Wait, I’ve got to get something off my chest. Have you heard the latest buzz on Gmail? Folks are questioning whether Gmail is now dropping emails on the floor like some other ISP’s I won’t mention here. I call ‘bacon bits’ on that. From what I’ve experienced this just isn’t true. At least the last time I checked (which is today.) You and I both know what to do with rumors, right? That rumors and opinions don’t belong online. We need evidence and it needs to be a repeatable event. Okay, off my soap box and back to business.

What does Gmail say about getting into their inbox? Let me summarize and translate what they actually publish so you can wrap your head around what it means for the email publishers who are trying to do the right thing.

Google says, “… more spam the community marks, the smarter our system becomes.” This may be true, but also the community who clicks on any link (that’s right, even the unsubscribe link) dumbs down the Google system. So if you want to get into the inbox, eventually you need to send your clickers. It also says it can update its system in a “… matter of minutes between the times a spammer sends out a new type of junk mail.” When my IP and domain reputation decreases, Google is quick to act. That is for sure. When I get a better reputation, however, they don’t act as quickly. You’ll just have to wait. Spammers don’t like waiting, and most ISP’s know this. That’s why they see, “too many messages per hour” responses. Clickers are a serious component of list health to email ISPs. They show them that your IPs, domains, and body message probably contains valuable information or content. If you’re trying to build a reputation, show your best side first, and send your clickers. Okay?

Google says it is using “optical character recognition (OCR) to protect Gmail users from image spam”. Okay, just don’t send Google one image emails. If it’s all you can send? Then slice the image up, and do it multiple times. Your IP and DOMAIN are the more critical components to the filter triggers. If you want to boost them up, then use human-readable image locations, and also add human-readable “alt” tags.

Gmail suggests using authentication. This is trivial, if you’re not doing this already you don’t belong in the email space. Drop the send button and call a list broker or ESP.

“Gmail shows you a brief explanation at the top of each of your spam messages.” That’s the biggest load of bacon-flavored cow pie that I’ve ever heard of. Come on! Gmail is really going to tell you the truth, or even close to the truth about how you got put into the Junk folder? Please for the love of bacon, ignore those explanations. If you can’t send a blank email into the inbox you can’t even start to try anything Gmail recommends for inboxing.