{"id":1889,"date":"2026-05-13T13:08:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.duport.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1889"},"modified":"2026-05-13T13:08:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T12:08:58","slug":"why-are-my-business-emails-going-to-spam-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.duport.co.uk\/blog\/why-are-my-business-emails-going-to-spam-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are My Business Emails Going to Spam UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Are My Business Emails Going to Spam UK?<\/h1>\n

setup issues. In practice, I tend to see the same few culprits come up again and again, especially with UK small businesses moving away from Gmail or Outlook. Four of them are quick fixes. One or two tend to catch people out more than expected. Most of these issues show up in a predictable order, so it makes sense to start with the ones I see breaking things most often.<\/p>\n

Is your SPF or DKIM failing?<\/h2>\n

This is the one that trips people up the most. I\u2019ve lost count of how many times everything else has been fine, but one missing or slightly wrong DNS record has pushed emails straight into spam. If either of those is wrong, Gmail and Outlook tend to be unforgiving about it.<\/p>\n

Send yourself a test email from your business address to a personal Gmail account. Open the message, click the three dots, and choose “Show original”. Look for two lines: spf=pass and dkim=pass. If either says fail or none, that’s your problem. The fix is to Copy the values exactly as they\u2019re shown in your email provider dashboard, don\u2019t tweak them. Even something as small as an extra space or a missing character is enough to break it, which is why this is the bit that catches people out most often. Paste them back into your DNS host, replacing the broken records. Wait an hour, then test again.<\/p>\n

The full SPF and DKIM picture is in Do I Need SPF and DKIM for Business Email UK?<\/a>. The order to set them up in is in Setting Up Business Email with Your Own Domain UK<\/a>\u00a0Step 3 of the pillar is the one that almost always needs a second pass when this happens.<\/p>\n

Is your domain too new?<\/h2>\n

New domains don\u2019t have any real sending history yet, so email providers basically watch them a bit more carefully at the start. It\u2019s not that new domains are \u201cbad\u201d, they just haven\u2019t earned any trust yet. I usually see this with businesses that have just launched a site and immediately start sending emails the same day, it almost always triggers filtering. For example, I\u2019ve seen this happen the same day someone launches a site, everything looks fine technically, but the first proper email blast ends up in spam because the domain has no history behind it yet. The threshold most providers use is around 30 days.<\/p>\n

The fix is simple, but it takes a bit of time, send normally, don\u2019t rush volume, and let the domain build a bit of history. Two weeks of normal back-and-forth builds reputation.<\/p>\n

Avoid sending bulk announcements from a brand new domain. A single newsletter to 200 contacts on day three is the fastest way to get the domain flagged. If you have a launch coming up, register the domain a month early instead.<\/p>\n

Are you sending from a free webmail forward?<\/h2>\n

If yourname@yourbusiness.co.uk forwards to a personal Gmail and you reply from Gmail, no DNS record will fix this. The reply goes from your Gmail address, not your business one. SPF and DKIM align to gmail.com instead of yourbusiness.co.uk. To the receiving system, it just looks inconsistent, your email is coming from Gmail, but claiming to represent your business domain.<\/p>\n

The fix is a real mailbox at your domain. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both offer this on standard tiers in the single-figure pounds per user per month range. UK-only email hosts run a little cheaper. Once your mailbox sits at the domain rather than forwarding away from it, SPF and DKIM align properly. The spam-folder rate drops fast.<\/p>\n

This is also usually where people notice their replies suddenly look a bit \u201coff\u201d compared to what they expected. The Gmail signature on the bottom gives the game away. We covered the choice of provider in Step 2 of the pillar guide Why Are My Business Emails Going to Spam UK?<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is your message content triggering spam filters?<\/h2>\n

Even with perfect authentication, content can land a message in Spam. Receiving servers score each message on dozens of content signals. Small business email is more likely than you’d think to trip several at once.<\/p>\n

From what I\u2019ve seen, it\u2019s usually a combination of small things rather than one big mistake.<\/p>\n

For example:<\/p>\n