# The confirmation email from our contact form lands in customers' spam. Why? | Illia BizTech > Since June it goes to spam at Gmail addresses and arrives normally elsewhere. The internal notification always arrives, which is why nobody noticed for months. Source: https://illia-biztech.de/en/forum/the-confirmation-email-from-our-contact-form-lands-in-customers-spam-why 1. [Home](/en) 2. [Forum](/en/forum) 3. The confirmation email from our contact form lands in customers' spam. Why? # The confirmation email from our contact form lands in customers' spam. Why? Since June it goes to spam at Gmail addresses and arrives normally elsewhere. The internal notification always arrives, which is why nobody noticed for months. * ##### Asked on September 4, 2026 When somebody submits our form they automatically get a confirmation, and since roughly June that lands in spam at Gmail addresses. With other providers it arrives normally. Our own internal notification always arrives, which is why we did not notice for a long time, until a customer rang. The sender is info@ our domain, and it is sent straight from the web server. There is an SPF line in the DNS that somebody entered years ago. #### Answers ![Portrait of Illia Belichenko, technical specialist at Illia BizTech](/_ipx/f_webp,q_75/https://cms.illia-biztech.de/uploads/small_Illia_Belichenko_author_81f88864f0.png) ##### Illia Belichenko ✓ Accepted answer September 5, 2026 The internal message arriving is both why this went unnoticed for so long and the clue to the cause. Your internal mail goes to a mailbox on the same domain and often never crosses the open internet at all. The confirmation to the customer, by contrast, is judged by somebody else's mail system, and Gmail has judged more strictly since 1 February 2024: every sender needs at least SPF or DKIM, matching forward and reverse DNS records, TLS in transit and a working unsubscribe mechanism on promotional mail. [Google documents the requirements itself](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126). So the SPF line already in place proves nothing. It dates from a time when your sending path may have been different, and if the web server doing the sending today is not listed in it, the check fails precisely there. The second point is the one almost everybody misses. The domain in the From field has to match the domain that passed SPF or DKIM. If they diverge, DMARC fails even though SPF and DKIM pass in their own right. On forms this tends to happen when the address of whoever filled the form in is put into the From field somewhere. In practice, do this: submit the form yourself to a Gmail address, open the message there and show the original. SPF, DKIM and DMARC appear at the top with pass or fail beside them. From that point you stop guessing and know which of the three is failing. And the thing that spares you this hunt in future: sending straight from the web server is the most fragile route there is. An authenticated outgoing mail server, the same one your staff write through, makes delivery considerably more stable. ##### #### [The quote was 6,000 euros and the invoice came to 9,500\. Do we have to pay it?](/en/forum/the-quote-was-6-000-euros-and-the-invoice-came-to-9-500-do-we-have-to-pay-it) September 5, 2026 [](/en/forum/the-quote-was-6-000-euros-and-the-invoice-came-to-9-500-do-we-have-to-pay-it) #### [We received a letter about Google Fonts demanding 170 euros. Do we pay?](/en/forum/we-received-a-letter-about-google-fonts-demanding-170-euros-do-we-pay) September 4, 2026 [](/en/forum/we-received-a-letter-about-google-fonts-demanding-170-euros-do-we-pay) #### [Our shop window carries the company name in German and Upper Sorbian. How do we write it on Google?](/en/forum/our-shop-window-carries-the-company-name-in-german-and-upper-sorbian-how-do-we-write-it-on-google) September 3, 2026 [](/en/forum/our-shop-window-carries-the-company-name-in-german-and-upper-sorbian-how-do-we-write-it-on-google) #### [What counts as a normal cost per enquiry from Google Ads?](/en/forum/what-counts-as-a-normal-cost-per-enquiry-from-google-ads) September 3, 2026 [](/en/forum/what-counts-as-a-normal-cost-per-enquiry-from-google-ads) #### [Our mailboxes are with the same provider as the website. Should we separate them?](/en/forum/our-mailboxes-are-with-the-same-provider-as-the-website-should-we-separate-them) September 2, 2026 [](/en/forum/our-mailboxes-are-with-the-same-provider-as-the-website-should-we-separate-them) **Share** **Topics** * email * deliverability * SPF