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Deliverability

Domain Reputation

A score assigned to your sending domain by email providers based on your email sending behavior and engagement.

Definition

Domain reputation is a score that mailbox providers assign to your sending domain based on email sending history, engagement patterns, complaint rates, and authentication. Unlike IP reputation which can change with new IPs, domain reputation follows your domain permanently. It heavily influences whether your emails reach the inbox.

Why It Matters

Domain reputation is increasingly important as more senders use shared IPs. Your domain reputation can help or hurt deliverability regardless of which IP you use. A damaged domain reputation takes significant time and effort to repair - sometimes requiring a new domain entirely.

How It Works

Providers track metrics for your domain: complaint rates, bounce rates, spam trap hits, engagement, and authentication results. These combine into a reputation score. Gmail, Microsoft, and others maintain separate reputation databases. Your reputation affects inbox placement, throttling, and blocking decisions.

Best Practices

  • 1Monitor domain reputation using tools like Google Postmaster
  • 2Maintain consistent sending patterns and volumes
  • 3Keep complaint rates low and engagement high
  • 4Properly authenticate all email with SPF, DKIM, DMARC
  • 5Address deliverability issues quickly before reputation damage compounds

Frequently Asked Questions

Use Google Postmaster Tools (for Gmail reputation), Microsoft SNDS (for Outlook), and general tools like Sender Score. These show how major providers view your domain.

Building positive reputation takes weeks to months of consistent, good sending behavior. Repairing damaged reputation takes even longer. Start new domains with low volume and gradually increase while maintaining good practices.