Postmaster Tools FAQs

Set up your PMT account

What domain do I add to Postmaster Tools?

You can add either the DKIM (d=) domain or the SPF (Return-Path) domain.

If your DKIM and SPF domains are the same, Postmaster Tools will combine traffic that’s signed by either SPF or DKIM (or both) when it generates the dashboards. Some dashboards, like the spam rate dashboard and feedback loop dashboard, only show data if the emails are signed by DKIM authentication.

Can I add a domain and prove its ownership later?

Yes. However, the dashboards for that domain will be empty until you verify the domain and prove ownership.

Once your domain is verified and you’re sending data, you can use the dashboards.

How do I verify ownership of my domain?

To verify your domain, add the TXT verification record to your domain's DNS verification.

When you sign up, you get a verification record that you copy and paste into your domain settings (usually stored with your domain host). Learn more about how to verify ownership of your Google domain or verify your domain from a different host.

I want someone else to have access to my domain's Postmaster tools data. How do I add users?

Important: You can only add people to your domain who have a valid Google or Google Workspace Account.

Sign in to Postmaster Tools.
Point to the verified domain you want to add someone to.
On the right, click More Manage users.
In the bottom-right, click the “Add” button.
In the pop-up window, enter the Google Account email address of the person you want to access your domain's Postmaster Tools data.

Should I add the domain name or the sub-domain(s) to Postmaster Tools?

To view data for all traffic to your domain, including the traffic on your sub-domains, add the domain-name. This data also includes any traffic corresponding to the exact domain-name match.

For example, example.com authenticates mail with 2 other subdomains, a.example.com and b.example.com. To view the data for traffic authenticated by "a.example.com," "b.example.com," and "example.com," add the main domain.

Once you add and verify ownership of a domain name, you can add sub-domains of that domain and view data without having to verify each of them. To view separate data for only your sub-domains, independently add your sub-domains.

I’d like to set up Postmaster Tools access for multiple accounts for our domain. Do I have to set up separate DNS verification records for each of them?

Yes. Each account needs its own DNS verification record. Learn more about DNS records.

Can I use my Google Workspace account to set up access to Postmaster Tools?

Yes. You can use a Google Account or a Google Workspace account to access Postmaster Tools.

Understand your data

Why do I only see recent data?

The last 30, 60, 90, and 120 day options will all show relevant data based on how long it’s been since you verified your domain.

When I click a data point on a graph, why do I see 0.0% as a value in some of the dashboard tables?

If you see “0.0%” as a value, either the number is low enough to be almost negligible and has been rounded down to zero, or the volume of emails sent is too low. The value is included so that you can view the triggering reason in the table below the graph.

To understand the triggering reasons, check the Postmaster Tools article.

What does reputation mean?

Your sending reputation is how Gmail's spam filter identifies if your email could be spam or not. If your reputation is higher, you’re identified as less likely to send spam and you’ll have better delivery rates.

Email deliverability is based on a lot of factors, including sender authentication, sending only to subscribed users who want your content, following good unsubscribe practices, and much more.

The definitions of spam below includes mail detected as spam by Gmail’s Spam filter, and mail reported by users as Spam.

Bad: A history of sending an enormously high volume of spam. Mail coming from this entity will almost always be rejected at SMTP or marked as spam.
Low: Known to send a considerable volume of spam regularly, and mail from this sender will likely be marked as spam.
Medium/Fair: Known to send good mail, but has occasionally sent a low volume of spam. Most of the email from this entity will have a fair deliverability rate, except when there’s a notable increase in spam levels.

High: Has a good track record of a very low spam rate, and complies with Gmail's sender guidelines. Mail will rarely be marked by the spam filter.

Why do I see an IP that I don’t send mail from in the IP reputation dashboard tables?

In rare cases due to mail forwarding, the IP reputation dashboard might display IPs you didn’t use to send any mail from. For the most part, forwarded mail is already filtered out when the data is computed.

Data exceptions

Sometimes, I don’t see all my sending IPs in the IP reputation dashboard tables. Why?

We cap the number of IPs shown in the tables to 500 IP-ranges per reputation group.

Why are some or all of my dashboards empty? Why do I not see any data?

Most of the Postmaster Tools dashboards will only display data when there’s a sizable daily volume of email traffic (up to the order of hundreds) coming from your Authentication Domains and/or certain other conditions, in place to prevent abuse.

You may see a "No data to display" error message on the IP and Domain reputation dashboards. This may happen when your reputation is too low to show a value. Learn how to improve your email delivery rate.

To show data, some of the dashboards, like Spam Rate and Feedback Loop, need your emails to be authenticated by DKIM.

Do you exclude forwarded mail when you generate the data seen in the dashboards?

Yes. We make a best effort to exclude forwarded mail.