Skip to main content

Bounced Email May Not Show Up In "Bulk" / "Spam"

We've been discussing the problem of email filtering, and missing email, for some time.

Some blog members / owners are certain that their missing email isn't caused by filters.
I looked in "Bulk" / "Spam"! The email isn't there, either - it simply does not get delivered!!
These people are certain that Blogger just is not sending the email.

In some cases, the problem is not with "Bulk" / "Spam" filters - it is with anti-spoofing filters - and email detected as spoofed, generally, is "bounced".

Bounced email never makes it as far as the "Bulk" / "Spam" filtering - it is simply rejected, and possibly returned to the sender (if identifiable).

Most - but not all - unwanted email is dropped into "Bulk" / "Spam" folders.

Most undesirable email will be delivered to the recipient - and dropped into the "Bulk" or "Spam" folders. This lets the recipient train the filters, when necessary, by marking some email as "Not Spam".

Spoofed email, on the other hand, is blocked upstream from the spam filters. Spoof filters do not need to be trained - email, detected as spoofed, is simply rejected.

Not all "spoof" classified email is fraudulently originated.

Unfortunately, not all "spoofed" email is being fraudulently mis addressed.To name but a few - are being rejected by many email spoof filters.

Mail is detected as "spoofed", simply because it is addressed to, or originates from, a Blogger account with a non GMail email address, yet mentions "blogger.com", "gmail.com", or "google.com" in the email headers. The spoofing filters examine email header content - not email body content - and are not trained by the addressees.

Important email, sent to you, may be bounced - without your knowledge.

If you are looking for important email from Blogger, you have looked in vain in "Bulk" / "Spam", and either you or the person originating the email uses non GMail based email, you may have to work very patiently with the network administrator who maintains the email service where your email is missing.

Find out if DKIM / DMARC / SPF email filters are used, to keep you safe - and try to persuade the email system administrators to filter "blogger.com", "gmail.com", and "google.com" more appropriately.
We are analysing this problem, and related problems. If you are missing important email - or if non delivered email has been reported to you - please read and heed the next article. The solution may start with your report.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".

With Following, Anonymous Followers Can't Be Blocked

As people become used to Blogger Following as just another tool to connect people, they start to think about the implications . And we see questions like How do I block someone who's been following my blog secretly? I couldn't see her in my Followers list (hence I couldn't use the "Block this user" link), but I have looked at her profile and could see that she's Following my blog. Following, when you look at the bottom line, is no more than a feed subscription and an icon (possibly) displayed on your blog, and linking back to the profile of the Follower in question. If someone Follows your blog anonymously, all that they get is a subscription to the blog feed. If you publish a feed from your blog, and if the feed is open to anybody (which, right now, is the case ), then it's open to everybody. If someone wants to use Following to subscribe to the feed, you can't stop this. You can't block it before, or after, the fact. You can't Block w