Only if youâre a spammer.
A business I was working with told me that they âsent my email address to spamâ because they didnât like what I was asking of them. Now Iâm a smidge worried. If they added my email address to their spam filter, does that mean Iâm somehow going to be pegged as a spammer in the larger Internet world? I seem to recall that someone once told me that anytime someone clicks that a message is spam, itâs a strike against you. Enough strikes and weâre in trouble. I donât remember how many strikes he said it took to be in trouble, though.
So⌠am I worrying about nothing? Or should I do something about it, if thereâs anything to do, that is?
The answer is simple: do nothing.
The reason behind the simple answer, naturally, is quite complex.
Spam filters â particularly good spam filters â rely heavily on users marking things as spam. In a way, itâs a form of crowd sourcing; the actions of users build a database used to determine what is and is not spam in subsequently received emails.
Where your email is marked as spam and who is doing the marking has a lot to do with any potential impact on emails you send in the future.
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The threat of being marked as spam
If someone marks your email as spam, it likely only affects their inbox or users of the same email service, not the larger internet. Spam filters are complex and individualized, so unless youâre spamming broadly, thereâs no need to worry or do anything.
Donât be a spammer
To begin with, donât spam.
Seriously. The single most important thing you can do with any email, mailing list, discussion list, or whatever is to make sure your email is welcome. That means keeping it appropriate for whoever is going to get it.
If you suddenly start flooding a list, or even a friend, with pictures of the grandkids, offers to purchase from the latest MLM, or your opinion(s) on the current state of whatever, and thatâs not what the recipients expect or want, then yes, you can expect your message to be marked as spam.
So donât do that, okay?
Where itâs marked as spam
There are two places that someone might mark an email as spam.
- In an email program, like Microsoft Office Outlook, Thunderbird, emClient, and so on.
- In an online email service, like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com and others.1
We can rule out the first one as a problem for you right away.
Marked as spam on the desktop
When someone marks a message as spam in a desktop email program, that information typically applies only to the individual doing the marking, and only to that specific email program installed on that specific computer.
Marking as spam in an email program doesnât affect anyone else at all. It only improves the experience of the person on that machine using that email program. Yes, if your email gets marked as spam enough times, email from you may go directly to that personâs spam folder, but only for that person.
That scenario is nothing you have control over but also nothing you need to worry about.
Online is a slightly different story â but only slightly.
Marked as spam online
Iâll use the Gmail web interface as an example, but the concepts apply to most online email services that provide spam filtering.
When someone marks your message as spam, Gmail may take that as a mark against you that could eventually impact your deliverability, but only for other recipients on Gmail.
For shared online services, that âmark against youâ applies only to that specific online service. Get enough marks as spam from Gmail users (and we donât know what that number is), and the Gmail spam filter will start dropping your messages into the spam folder.
Or will it?
Practical effects of being marked as spam
Spam filters are complex. They look at much more than who sent the email or even whether it was marked as spam.
Email service spam filters look at:
- The content of the message
- The reputation of the email service or server being used to send the mail
- Timing
- The number of recipients
- Much more
In fact, just about any email characteristic you can think of (and probably several you canât) are factors in determining what is and is not spam. So it may mean nothing at all if one person keeps marking you as spam, even on a shared system.
Personalized results
If someone marks your email as spam often enough, your email may end up being considered spam for them.
Even on a shared system like Gmail, spam filters can be different for each recipient. What Gmail considers spam for you might differ from what it considers spam for me because you and I consistently mark different things as spam.
That means if one person marks your messages as spam a bunch of times and others do not, Gmail might say, in effect, âWell, this person thinks itâs spam, so Iâll just spam it for him alone.â As soon as you get many reports from multiple different recipients, a more global algorithm is likely to kick in and consider filtering it as spam for more people.
And yetâŚ
Hereâs where things get even more vague.
I use Gmail as my example because it has one of the best spam filters out there. Other services have spam filters of various levels of quality and capability, including close to none at all. So everything I just described for Gmail might not happen for, say, Outlook.com, or happen to different degrees or with different rules.
If someone has email based on their own web hosting (folks who have custom domains and email addresses on those domains), their spam filter may do something else entirely.
Itâs difficult to know.
The âlarger internet worldâ doesnât really exist
When it comes to spam filtering, thereâs really no âlarger internet worldâ, at least at the level of the individual sender.
When one person marks your message as spam, it may:
- Make it more likely your email to that person will end up in their spam folder.
- Make it very slightly more likely that your email to others using the same email service might end up in their spam folders.
- Not affect your ability to deliver to anyone else at all.
Do this
Thatâs a long answer for the scenario you describe. It boils down to two things:
- Donât spam.
- Otherwise, donât worry about it.
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Footnotes & References
1: Most mobile apps are, in a sense, extensions of the online service when they are specifically written for that service. General-purpose mobile email programs operate like the desktop equivalents, if they even have a âmark as spamâ feature at all.
OK ,, I know a few webpages that will not let me on unless I ask an ADMIN to clear it up (they usually donât know what I am talking about, at first) until their techy person can clear it up ,, then ,, there are a few websites (products or services I am inquiring about) I have responded to through their webpage messaging and NO Response ( extremely annoying) I think I am marked as Spam ,, Then again ,, While searching for something, I encountered a website that gave a message that said âMy computer is prohibited from accessing the page as it was marked as spam 3 timesâ (something like that)
How to know and correct this situation ??
Computers are not marked as spam, so Iâm afraid I donât understand your question. Email messages are marked as spam. And getting anything marked as spam should not prevent you from accessing any web sites â it just means your email may land in someoneâs spam folder, thatâs all.
Some interesting points on spam.
We must realise that most of what is called spam is bad marketing and lousy manners.
It is not long term business building.
To understand what to do and what not to do you must study âreal marketing and Psychologyâ.
It is not a computer or IT problem, its a human problem.
What the person got was a lesson about dealing with a cranky employee, and another lesson that if they have a problem to resolve, email is not always the way to do it.
Also that they should learn to NEGOTIATE over business problems instead of demanding, seek MEDIATION.
They may have just found that they should just go somewhere else and accept that it isnât going to work like they want.
NONE of this is a computer problem, itâs a HUMAN RELATIONS or CIVIL MATTER. Perhaps the local Chamber Of Commerce or Better Business Bureau, a lawyer or stateâs attorney generalâs office.
But itâs not a computer problem at all, itâs a communication issue in general.
What is SpamHaus then? Is not it a global database of spammers?
It is one of many, many different services that try to provide information about spammers. With spammers constantly changing email addresses, using others email addresses, hacking machines and changing servers, thereâs nothing really to put into a âdatabase of spammersâ that would work.
Hi Leo,
What about this paragraph from the MX Toolbox website? This is what I have always been concerned about when people mark any of our business emails as spam:
http://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
The blacklist test will check a mail server IP address against over 100 DNS based email blacklists. (Commonly called Realtime blacklist, DNSBL or RBL). If your mail server has been blacklisted, some email you send may not be delivered. Email blacklists are a common way of reducing spam. If you donât know your mail serverâs address, start with a MX Lookup. Or, just send an email to ping@tools.mxtoolbox.com
Thanks for your feedback! Love your newsletter đ
Lynda
Yep. Email servers (not your IP, but the email service you use) that send a lot of spam can be black listed. The blacklists are inaccurate, and not universally used, but they do exist. But, again, they donât apply to individuals, but rather to the servers that send mail on your (and a lot of other peopleâs) behalf.
Sir,
Really a nice article on spam. A small doubt, of course . There are spam filters which mark so many IPS nos country wise . I also wonder, that most of the service providers are having dynamic IPS. Would not one , at no fault of his, would log in the IP of filtered spam by those organisation, as marked as spam when he tries to visit genuine website, which has enabled spam filters for their site.
What is the solution for this? Sir,
Hey Leo,
Awesome article, very helpful! I know Iâm pinging a post a year old now but I had 2 questions I hope you can shed some light on:
1) I use gmail to send and receive business emails but it is all filtered through a company email address. If I was marked as spam, which would be affected: gmail or company?
2) I use a template introductory email (kind of) but for its 100+/- words it has at least 20 variable to make the email personal and is only ever sent to one person. When you say the âcontent of the emailâ is evaluated for potential spam, would these similar emails typically be regarded as the SAME âspammyâ message sent hundreds of times individually to different people? I ask because Iâve seen the phrase âothers have marked messages like this spamâ in my spam folder.
Thanks for your time and help, Leo!
1) Marking as spam in gmail only adds to gmailâs spam filter.
2) All I can say is âmaybeâ. Itâs MUCH more complex than a simple yes or no could offer. If people mark your emails as spam, and you send a lot of emails that look similar then itâs possible your others could be flagged as spam as well.
Is there another way to block emails from a source that is perfectly legitimate, not SPAM at all, but I just donât want to get any more messages from them? Since Iâm using Gmail, it appears I will, however mildly, injure them somewhat if I mark their messages as SPAM and I donât want to do that. Most of these are offers of some sort. Thanks much Leo.
If itâs legitimate then you should be able to unsubscribe. If thereâs no option to do so, then it is spam and you should mark it as such.
The only other solution Iâm aware of is to set up a filter in Gmail to auto-delete the messages meeting your criteria on arrival.
Great article thanks. My question is like an inversion â Gmail sends too much into my spam folder. âAll mailâ still doesnât show mail in the spam folder. Iâm fed up marking mail from friends as NOT SPAM when Iâve discovered them in spam. Again. Whatâs the best way of dealing with this?
Doing what youâre doing â marking them as ânot spamâ.
The only other solution Iâm aware of is if you have a consistent sender thatâs always getting sent to spam, you can set up a filter in Gmail and tell it ânever mark as spamâ.
Recently I (using yahoo) contacted a friend (using gmail). We contacted many times in the past when we lived in the same city in Norway, but hadnât been in contact since she moved back to her homecountry China. She now lives in Australia (not sure if this matters). She is very considerate and wouldnât spam anyone. Still her reply to me one day later went to my spamfolder! Actually I didnât find the message before a week later, was lucky to find it before it was deleted. Yahoo has got good at filtering out spam (thatâs why I rarely check it), how could this possibly end up as spam?
False positives are not uncommon with spam filters. I check my spam folders daily to see if there are any false positives. I occasionally find them. Iâve even found an email from Leo in the spam folder, and we correspond regularly.
I have a Gmail account, and another with Outlook. In Thunderbird, I have both accounts set up using IMAP. If I mark an incoming email message as spam, is it marked as such only for Thunderbird, or for Gmail/Outlook too?
Ernie (Oldster)
Unfortunately, marking an email as spam in Thunderbird generally only affects your Thunderbird settings. It doesnât directly impact the spam filters of other email clients like Gmail or Outlook. Youâd have to mark that email as spam in the Web interface of Gmail or Outlook.
One thing you can do is have Gmail download the emails from the other accounts and use the Gmail interface to manage your emails. Leo does this. Can I Access One Email Account from Another?
Maybe. Sorry to be that vague.
First, Iâm sure itâs at least for Thunderbird.
For the other two, then if âmark as spamâ is configured to move the email into the proper spam/junk folder, which is then mirrored via IMAP online, AND if the service treats âmove to spamâ the same as âmark as spamâ, then yes, itâll be for the service as well.
The problem is we donât know if âmove to spamâ counts for each mail service.