What if it Went to Junk/Spam?
Here is the Scenario;
You see a Facebook post for a really cool email newsletter, not unlike my Luxcentric Tech E-Rescue Newsletter , so you enter your name and email address into the form and you wait. You know you should receive an email that says “please confirm that you really want to receive emails from us”. And you appreciate that companies are doing this instead of just adding you to their list.
But then you wait.
You check your inbox again for that confirmation email, you refresh your inbox. Maybe even close out your email program/browser and login again, still no email. Sometimes it works to try signing up again, but sometimes it doesn’t.
Or maybe your friend says “Hey, did you get that email I sent you?”. No, you didn’t get it.
So what is happening here? Why didn’t you get it?
There is a really good reason. And it is both good news and bad news.
Good News, Bad News
The good news is that as we progress in technology, email junk filters are getting better and better.
The bad news is that as we progress in technology, email junk filters are getting better and better.
So here is the abbreviated version of what is going on. (very abbreviated)
When an email is sent out it leaves the sender’s email system (their email system), travels through several checkpoints and if it “passes inspection” it drops into your inbox.
Here are a few of the major checkpoints. EMAIL can get stuck anywhere along the way.
- Your email system’s junk filters
- Your email program’s junk filters
- Your email accounts junk filters
- Your custom filters
How the Different spam/junk Filters Work
Your email host’s spam filter
Your email host is the first system THE EMAIL gets to on its way to you. Hosts like Godaddy, Bluehost, Gmail, Outlook, Comcast, Yahoo, etc. all have their own filters in place so that the worst obvious junk NEVER even hits your system. (Some are better than others)
You don’t see it. It doesn’t go into your junk or spam folder, or archive – nothing. This sucks if it is something important.
These filters are programmed and adjusted every time someone marks an email as junk/spam. Including legitimate emails and helpful email newsletters. The only thing you can do about this is to be diligent about only marking true spam as spam.
spam definition
noun
– irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of recipients.
– the same message indiscriminately to (large numbers of recipients) on the Internet.
Your email program’s junk filters
Often if you have a custom domain you will use a third party email client (program, system) to view and interact with your email. Like the Outlook program, Outlook Online or Gmail. When you use these accounts to manage your email you also get access to their powerful spam/junk filters. And like your email host’s filters, you don’t have a lot of control other than marking only true spam as spam.
Your email accounts junk filters
Within your email account, you have a spam or junk folder. You have some control here. Check your junk/spam mail folder regularly and mark “non-spam” things as “Not Spam/junk”. It may take a while to train your accounts junk filters about your junk preferences, but eventually, it will work. And it will also help the upper-level spam filters work better.
Your custom filters
Most email accounts these days allow you to set filters or rules about what email is allowed in your inbox and what emails are routed elsewhere (or deleted). It is possible to accidentally set a weird filter or a filter that does more than you actually want it to.
example;
If you had set a filter to delete everything with the word “free” in it then you will catch lots of bad junk and miss a lot of good stuff).
Filters and/or Rules can be checked in your email account settings.
Whitelisting and things you can do
And finally, you can simply add the email address to your contact list so when it comes in it will be triggered as “from a trusted email address”. This won’t solve all your missing email problems but it will solve some and will save you some unnecessary frustration.
Another thing to try if you can send to your friend but your friend can’t send to you is to encourage your friend to reply to your emails and go back and forth for a bit and try again.
There are also other things you can do and deep important things you can research. My favorite go-to for this is Return Path, Check them out at https://returnpath.com
