Domain reputation is a measurement of how a specific domain is perceived by the email ecosystem. It is determined by a combination of factors, including spam complaints and email sending volume. Maintaining a high domain reputation is critical for successful cold email campaigns.

Email receivers have a unique way of check your domain reputation of senders. Rather than one overall domain reputation, each receiver has its own individualized process that takes into account specific engagement metrics and sending practices.

Since this data is very sensitive and can be used by spammers to manipulate the system, receivers keep their domain reputation assessment processes private in order to prevent abuse. However, there are free online domain reputation checkers and lookup tools that aggregate multiple receivers’ data to provide a general overview of your reputation. Two of the more popular are Barracuda Networks and McAfee.

How Does Domain Reputation Work? A Deep Dive

In addition to providing a quick and easy way to check your domain reputation, these tools can also help you identify issues that could impact your deliverability. For example, a domain with a poor reputation may be associated with email spam traps or blacklisted IP addresses. These tools can also alert you to any recent issues that have been spotted by email receivers that may affect your sender reputation.

If you find that your domain reputation is poor, it’s important to take steps to correct the problem. Whether that means taking action to clean up your list or starting from scratch, making sure that you’re following best practices for email senders will help you improve your reputation over time.