Microprocessing
Your Email Spam Filter Is More Aggressive Than You Realize
Many people complain that their messages are suddenly getting caught. Here’s what’s going on.
As a freelance writer who conducts many interviews with academics and other experts, I send a lot of cold emails. This takes a fair amount of time and effort, particularly since only about 20% of the people I reach out to ever write back.
That response rate used to be a bit higher, but a few months ago, I got a disappointing message in my own inbox from an expert: My first email, she said, had gone to her university email spam folder. Had I gained some kind of reputation as a horrible writer? Did everyone hate me? Had I been put on the universal academic blacklist for journalists who are total idiots?
Thankfully, no. Instead, for some unknown reason, various email servers had been funneling my messages into people’s spam folders. Since her initial message, the problem has only grown: Not only have I been personally and professionally screwed by spam filters, but I’ve found important, timely messages from other people hidden away in my own spam folder.
I set out on a mission to figure out what the hell was going on and how to fix it. It was, unfortunately, nearly…
