# Email Reputation: How to Check and Repair It for Cold Email

> Email reputation has no single score, and Google is retiring its reputation dashboards. What a cold sender can still check, and how to repair damage.

Canonical: https://ballast.to/blog/email-reputation
Last updated: 2026-11-02

Email reputation is the trust a mailbox provider gives your domain and sending IP, built from how people react to your mail and how cleanly you send it. There is no single score. Gmail, Microsoft and Yahoo each keep their own and don't publish it. If you send cold email, you check it indirectly: bounce rate, spam rate, blacklists and a placement test. Most guides still send you to Google's reputation dashboard, which Google says it is retiring, and to IP tools that say little when you send from Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

## What is email reputation made of?

Three things get called reputation, and they behave differently.

| Kind | What it follows | Who can change it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Domain reputation | The domain in your From address and DKIM signature | You. It moves with your domain whichever mailbox or tool sends |
| IP reputation | The server that hands over the email | Whoever runs that server. On Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, that's the provider |
| Mailbox behaviour | One account's bounces, complaints and sending pattern | You, mailbox by mailbox. Providers don't publish a mailbox score, but a burned account shows up in its own numbers |

The people who use "sender reputation" mean the first two together. For most cold senders the domain carries the weight, because they send through a mailbox provider and share its IPs with many other accounts. If you run your own SMTP server or rent a dedicated IP, the IP is yours to look after too.

## Why doesn't Google Postmaster Tools show your reputation any more?

Because Google decided the rating wasn't useful. The old Postmaster Tools rated domains and IPs as Bad, Low, Medium or High. [Google's notice](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/16594218?hl=en) says every old dashboard carries over to the new version except Domain and IP Reputation, which will be retired. Its reasons: the data is hard for most senders to act on, it reflects changes in behaviour slowly, and it can mislead, since reputation is only one factor in delivery.

The details are less tidy than most articles make them, as of November 2026:

- The new Postmaster Tools and its API have no reputation rating.
- Retirement of the old web interface was postponed, with no new date.
- Google says a new Reputation dashboard is coming, also with no date.
- Google's [dashboards help page](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/14668346?hl=en) still describes the four ratings, so a guide built on that page reads as current.

What remains is worth having. The spam rate, authentication, delivery errors and compliance dashboards answer more specific questions than "Medium" ever did. Two limits apply to cold email: you have to verify your domain with Google, and Google warns that dashboards may not include all data on days when your volume is low. A domain sending a few hundred emails a day can see gaps.

## How do you check your email reputation?

No tool answers this alone. Here is what each signal can tell a cold sender, and where it stops.

| Signal | Where you read it | What it tells you | Where it stops |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Bounce rate | Your sending tool | Whether your list is bad, or receivers are refusing you | Read the codes: a dead address and a refused sender mean different things |
| Spam rate at Gmail | Postmaster Tools | How many recipients marked you as spam | Gaps at low volume, and it counts only DKIM-authenticated mail to Gmail accounts |
| Spam reports | Feedback loop reports from Yahoo, Microsoft and others | Which sends drew a complaint | [Gmail doesn't send these](https://ballast.to/docs/domains#spam-complaints), so your largest provider stays out of it |
| Blacklists | [A blacklist check](https://ballast.to/check/blacklist) | Whether Spamhaus and others list your domain or IP | A clean result doesn't prove good placement |
| Authentication | [A domain check](https://ballast.to/check) | Whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC are set up and passing | Necessary, and it says nothing about how people react to you |
| Placement test | [A seed test](https://ballast.to/docs/placement-tests) | Inbox, spam or missing, per provider | A small sample of test inboxes, which real recipients' filters can disagree with |
| Reply rate | Your sending tool | A sudden drop across every campaign points past the copy | Slow, and a weak offer looks the same |

Then there are the tools that older guides lead with. [Microsoft SNDS](https://substrate.office.com/ip-domain-management-snds/snds) gives data about individual IPs, and you have to request access to the IPs you're responsible for. If you send from Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, those IPs aren't yours, so it has nothing for you. [Sender Score](https://senderscore.org/) and [Cisco Talos](https://support.talosintelligence.com/docs/email-reputation/) are also built around IP addresses, so looking up your provider's mail server tells you about the provider. They are useful if you run a dedicated IP, and not much otherwise.

The practical reading is a pattern across signals. One bad number can be noise. Bounces rising, replies falling and a placement test landing in spam at the same time is a reputation problem.

## What numbers count as healthy?

Gmail publishes one number. The rest are practice, and I'd keep them separate in your head.

| Measure | Keep it under | Where the number comes from |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Spam rate at Gmail | 0.1%, and never reach 0.3% | [Gmail sender guidelines](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126) |
| Spam rate at Yahoo | 0.3% | [Yahoo sender best practices](https://senders.yahooinc.com/best-practices/) |
| Bounce rate per mailbox | 1% is comfortable, 5% is a stop | The lines I use in Ballast. No provider publishes one |

Gmail's spam rate rules are written for bulk senders to personal accounts, and they don't mention B2B outreach. I still treat 0.3% as a ceiling for cold email, because it's the only line a provider has put in writing. For the difference between a dead address and a refusal, see [soft bounce vs hard bounce](https://ballast.to/blog/soft-vs-hard-bounce).

## What damages email reputation in cold email?

Mostly the list and how fast you send it. Content comes after those.

- **Bounces from a list nobody cleaned.** A receiver reads a stream of addresses that don't exist as a sender who didn't get them from anywhere good. [Catch-all domains](https://ballast.to/blog/catch-all-email) add bounces that come later, after a verifier called them fine.
- **Spam complaints.** One click on "Report spam" outweighs a lot of ignored email. People who can't find a way out use that button, so give them an unsubscribe link and honour it.
- **Spam traps.** No bounce and no warning, and the list is usually what brought you there. [Spam traps](https://ballast.to/blog/spam-traps) covers how each kind gets onto a list.
- **Volume that jumps.** A new mailbox sending at its full daily number from day one looks like an account taken over. Google's [limits](https://ballast.to/blog/gmail-sending-limits) are far above what a mailbox can send cold without damage.
- **Missing authentication.** SPF, DKIM and DMARC don't earn trust, but failing them removes it, and DMARC is required for bulk senders at Gmail.
- **Sending after a warning.** The avoidable damage happens here. The usual version: bounces pass 5% on a Tuesday, nobody looks, and the campaign runs until Friday.

## How do you repair a damaged email reputation?

Stop first, then find the cause, then come back slowly. Sending through the problem adds to the record you're trying to fix.

1. **Pause the campaigns on that domain.** Keep normal one-to-one mail going.
2. **Find which signal moved first.** Bounce codes first, then the blacklist check, then the spam rate. [Why emails go to spam](https://ballast.to/blog/why-emails-go-to-spam) has the order I use to narrow it down.
3. **Fix the cause.** Verify the list and drop what's left of the bad segment, repair authentication, remove the tracking link or the campaign that drew the complaints. If a blacklist lists you, use its own removal process after you've fixed the cause. Removal without the fix doesn't last.
4. **Restart with your best leads.** Send to recently verified people who match your offer, at a fraction of the old volume. Replies from real people are the signal you want more of.
5. **Raise volume in steps and read the numbers at each one.** If bounces or complaints climb again, you haven't found the cause yet.

Warmup can help a mailbox while you do this, but it doesn't outweigh bounces and complaints from the real campaign. If the list is still bad, the warmup numbers will look fine and the campaign will not.

## How long does recovery take?

No provider publishes a timeline, and I'd be wary of anyone quoting one. Google itself lists slowness as a reason for retiring the rating. A domain with a short bad week and a clean restart tends to recover faster than one with months of complaints behind it. Judge it by what you can measure: the next placement test, the spam rate over the following weeks, and whether replies come back.

## Should you switch to a new domain?

Only after you know why the old one failed. A new domain has no bad history, but it also has no good history, and the same list and the same pace will take it to the same place within weeks. It also makes sense to send cold email from a secondary domain from the start, so a mistake in outreach doesn't touch the domain your invoices and customer email rely on. That is insurance taken out in advance. Buying domains to escape each burned one is a different habit, and it mostly funds the registrar.

## How Ballast handles reputation

I think a sending tool should be able to say no, so these lines are built in. A mailbox above 1% bounces on 20 or more recent sends takes a smaller share of new leads. Above 5%, on a sample of at least 50, it stops until a person turns it back on, and spam complaints over 0.3% do the same. If its warmup inbox rate falls under 60%, campaign sending rests for a day while warmup continues. [Sending safety](https://ballast.to/docs/sending-safety) has the details.

Nobody controls Gmail's filter, and Ballast can't promise you an inbox. It can stop a bad week from running until Friday. If your list is the problem, no tool fixes that for you. Start with a [free domain check](https://ballast.to/check), which reads your SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blacklist status in a few seconds.

## FAQ

### Can I check my email reputation for free?

Yes, in parts. Postmaster Tools is free once you verify your domain, and it shows spam rate and authentication at Gmail. A [domain check](https://ballast.to/check) covers authentication and blacklists. Your sending tool has bounces and replies. Paid tools mostly add placement testing and bundle the same public data.

### What is the difference between sender reputation and domain reputation?

Domain reputation belongs to the domain alone. Sender reputation usually means the combined view of domain and sending IP, though tools use the term loosely. If you send through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, the two come close to the same thing in practice, because the IP isn't yours to manage.

### Does a good reputation mean I'll reach the inbox?

No. Google says as much in its reasons for retiring the rating: reputation is one factor in delivery. A trusted domain can still land in spam with a message people don't want, or at a company whose own gateway filters it.

### Does one domain's reputation affect my other domains?

Providers don't publish how they connect domains. Assume shared patterns can link them: the same copy, the same links and the same list sent from ten domains look like one sender. Spreading a bad campaign across more domains spreads the damage with it.

### Is there one number I should watch?

Bounce rate, because it's the one you see first and always have, at any volume. Spam rate matters more once you can read it, but at low volume it may not be there.