Email on your own domain: why your emails land in spam and how to fix it

“We sent the invoice, but the client never got it” — it’s almost never the client’s email, it’s yours: messages go out from a domain recipients can’t verify, and they end up in spam.

How mail servers decide whether it’s spam

Gmail, Mail.ru and corporate servers check three things: whether this server is allowed to send mail for your domain (SPF), whether the message is signed with the domain’s key (DKIM), and what to do if the checks fail (DMARC). On top of that, they look at the sender IP’s reputation and the message content.

Five reasons emails don’t get through

1. No SPF/DKIM/DMARC records, or they’re misconfigured — the most common reason.
2. Email on shared hosting. Hundreds of websites send mail from a single IP; if one of them spams, everyone loses reputation.
3. Mass mailings from work mailboxes. Bulk sending from a corporate mailbox is a fast track to blacklists.
4. A free mailbox in the company signature. Emails from @gmail.com “on behalf of an LLC” look suspicious to both filters and clients.
5. A hacked mailbox. A simple password without two-factor protection — and spam starts going out from your domain, which then gets blacklisted.

What to do

• Set up email on your own domain with correct DNS records — this is done once during setup.
• Use a server with a clean reputation and a dedicated IP rather than shared hosting.
• Enable two-factor authentication and inbound spam filtering.
• For mailings, use a separate service and subdomain so you don’t damage your main domain’s reputation.
• Test deliverability: send emails to Gmail, Mail.ru and Outlook and check the headers — all three checks should say “pass”.

Why this matters more than it seems

An invoice in spam means payment is delayed by a week. A commercial proposal in spam means a lost deal. A notice about changed bank details that the client never saw means a risk they’ll pay fraudsters via a fake email that did get through.

How it works at MyCloud

Corporate email on your domain with servers in Tashkent: we configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC at setup, test deliverability, and enable spam filtering and 2FA. A 10 GB mailbox costs 1 000 UZS per day. When you move from Google or Mail.ru, we advise and help migrate your mail, with no email downtime.