Domain reputation refers to your domain's good or bad image in front of the email service providers (ESPs). Based on this reputation, the ESPs decide the email deliverability of your account that whether your emails should reach the recipient's inbox or not.
Your domain is used everywhere including your 'From Address', your Return-Path Domain, etc. Some people may accept your email seeing its domain, while others may find it suspicious and throw it into the trash. It all depends upon your domain reputation.
How to calculate domain reputation?
The receiver keenly observes your domain and how it is represented in the inbox. Using this observation, the ISPs score your domain by applying complex algorithms and building trust level on its basis for future email exchange.
Free domain reputation checkers and lookup tools
To check the status of your domain, there exist some reputation checkers and search tools that can extract and combine data from numerous receivers to give you an idea about the reputation of your domain in general. These tools include:
Google Postmaster Tools
Google postmaster tool is an efficient tool that checks the reputation of your domain if you have enough volume to make the data anonymous. It grades your domain reputation which enables you to determine the deliverability of your emails to Google recipients. Even if you have a different receiver, still this tool provides you enough insight into how other receivers might take your domain's reputation.
Talos Intelligence
Cisco provides Talos Intelligence tool to determine your domain reputation based on the emails delivered over numerous IP addresses. It points out enough issues for you that hinder your email deliverability. However, if you see a 'neutral' reputation then it means the available data related to your domain is not sufficient enough.
Third-party Filtering Software
Third-part filtering software is employed by some corporate and university mail servers to check whether your domain reputation is good, blacklisted, or in a risky state. Barracuda and McAfee are two of the most recognized third-party filtering software for quick domain reputation search.
SpamAssassin Filter
Many tools employ an open-source SpamAssassin filter to determine the reputation of any domain present in your email headers. Like Postmark's SpamCheck tool uses SpamAssassin filter to provide your domain reputation score instantly.
Public Block Lists
Public block lists allow you to see whether your domain lies among the blocked domains as a result of some undesired behavior exhibited or not. You can check the reputation status of your domain using MXToolBox or multiRBL.valli.org. It provides some links that allow you to acquire more information regarding the listings with options to fix the issues that might affect your email deliverability and domain status.
What should you do?
As a sender, it is very critical for you to keep on checking your domain reputation to maintain healthy email deliverability. Make sure that you are associated with the right domain and highly reputable ESPs that keep your domain among the top-rated ones as a result of your good email-delivery practices.
