Google Postmaster Tools is a free dashboard reporting how Gmail treats mail from your domain, and since 2025 it no longer reports a reputation grade — it reports compliance, spam rate, and a plain-language verdict on whether Gmail's users want your email. No third-party checker carries the same authority, because no third party is making the filtering decision.
Most guidance still describes the old version. The High / Medium / Low / Bad reputation ladder does not exist any more, and what replaced it is considerably more useful.
This guide covers what each panel means now, what the tool cannot tell you, and the four readings that justify changing something.
What changed, and when
The old dashboard is gone in stages, and the dates matter because stale advice is still ranking.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 30 September 2025 | The v1 dashboard retired; users redirected to v2 |
| 31 October 2025 | The v1 API decommissioned — calls return empty |
| 3 February 2026 | The v2 API reached general availability |
| 11 June 2026 | Deliverability Analysis launched |
| 14 August 2026 | Deliverability Analysis updated |
What was removed: Domain Reputation and IP Reputation, and the historical reputation data behind them. Those were the panels everyone screenshotted, and they were also the panels that told you the least — a "Medium" grade named a problem without naming a cause.
What replaced them is a verdict with an action attached, which is a straightforwardly better trade even though it broke every guide written before it.
Deliverability Analysis: the panel that matters now
Deliverability Analysis converts Gmail's internal signals into a stated reason your mail is treated the way it is. It is the closest thing to Gmail telling you directly what is wrong.
The API exposes eight statuses — seven that name something actionable, plus one fallback that means Google is not saying.
| Verdict | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
USER_FEEDBACK_POSITIVE |
Recipients engage with your mail | Nothing. Keep the cadence you have |
USER_FEEDBACK_LOW |
Delivered, but people are not acting on it | A relevance and segmentation problem, not a technical one |
USER_FEEDBACK_NEGATIVE |
Recipients are actively marking mail unwanted | Cut frequency and tighten the list. Treat as urgent |
SPAM_RATE_HIGH |
Complaint rate above 0.1% | Find the campaign that caused it. 0.3% is the cliff |
SENDER_NOT_COMPLIANT |
Authentication or formatting requirements unmet | Go to email authentication |
SMTP_ERRORS_HIGH |
Elevated delivery failures | Volume spikes or infrastructure. Read the bounce text |
MESSAGE_VOLUME_LOW |
Not enough mail for Gmail to judge | Nothing is wrong. There is not enough evidence |
REASON_UNSPECIFIED |
No reason given | Check again later. Not a fault |
Two of these are routinely misread.
MESSAGE_VOLUME_LOW is not a problem. It means you send too little to personal Gmail addresses for the analysis to run. Small senders see it permanently and should ignore it.
USER_FEEDBACK_LOW is not the same as USER_FEEDBACK_NEGATIVE, and confusing them causes senders to panic-fix the wrong thing. Low means nobody is reacting. Negative means people are reacting badly. The first is a content and segmentation problem — why nobody clicks your emails is the relevant diagnosis. The second is a reputation event that needs the list cut immediately.
Three caveats before you rely on it. The rollout is uneven, so not every account shows the section yet. It covers personal Gmail addresses only — nothing about Google Workspace recipients. And it does not tell you which campaign, subdomain or sending platform produced the verdict, so it names the problem without locating it.
Compliance Status
Compliance Status is a Pass / Needs Work verdict against Gmail's published bulk sender requirements, with the specific failing requirement attached when it fails.
It checks authentication, TLS, valid forward and reverse DNS, one-click unsubscribe, and the spam rate threshold. Failing it is the most urgent thing the dashboard can tell you, because non-compliance produces rejection rather than filtering — the mail does not arrive at all.
The requirements themselves, and the order to satisfy them in, are in Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft bulk sender requirements.
One-click unsubscribe is the requirement most often failed by senders who believe they are compliant, because it is a header rather than a visible link, and a footer unsubscribe link does not satisfy it.
Spam rate: the number to watch weekly
Spam rate is the percentage of your delivered Gmail messages that recipients marked as spam, and it is the earliest warning the dashboard produces. It moves before revenue does.
| Reading | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Under 0.05% | Healthy |
| 0.05–0.1% | Watch it. Something changed |
| Above 0.1% | Above Google's stated limit |
| Above 0.3% | Crisis. Mitigation support is withdrawn until the rate holds below the line for seven consecutive days |
Read it by date, not as an average. A spike on a specific day names the campaign that caused it, and that is the entire diagnostic value. An averaged figure across a month hides the send that did the damage.
The trap worth knowing: once Gmail is filtering you to spam, fewer people see the mail, so fewer people can complain. A falling complaint rate alongside falling opens is bad news, not good. Read the two together, always.
The rest of the dashboard
Authentication — SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass rates as Gmail sees them. Anything below 100% means a sending source you have not authenticated. A gap here is usually a tool somebody connected without telling you.
Encryption — the share of your mail delivered over TLS. Should be at or near 100%. A dip points at a sending path you did not know existed.
Delivery errors — rejections grouped by reason: rate limiting, suspected spam, bad or missing PTR. This is the panel that distinguishes "Gmail is throttling us" from "Gmail is refusing us".
Feedback loop — only populates if you have set up FBL identifiers, and it reports complaint rates per campaign stream rather than per complainer. Gmail has no per-complainer feedback loop at all, which is why the aggregate spam rate is the substitute and why watching it is not optional. Microsoft's JMRP does email you a copy of each complaint, so the complainer can be suppressed immediately.
Why your dashboard is blank
A blank dashboard is almost always volume, not a fault.
Google does not publish exact minimums, but the practical floor is a few hundred messages a day to personal Gmail addresses — not to Google Workspace accounts, and not to your total list across all providers. Compliance Status and Authentication populate earlier than the engagement-dependent panels, so a partially blank dashboard is normal.
Privacy thresholds also suppress data on low-volume days, so gaps in an otherwise populated chart are expected rather than alarming.
If you send below that floor, Postmaster is not your instrument. Use a seed test and your own platform metrics instead — the method is in why authenticated emails still land in spam. Adding your domain now is still worth doing, because the historical data only starts accumulating from the day you verify.
What Postmaster cannot tell you
This is the section that stops people over-reading the dashboard.
- It says nothing about Outlook, Yahoo or anyone else. Reputation is per-provider. Use Microsoft SNDS and Yahoo's Sender Hub for those.
- It cannot tell you which campaign caused a verdict. It gives you a date. You match the date against your send log yourself.
- It does not report inbox placement. Nothing tells you what share of your mail reached the inbox rather than the Promotions tab or spam — no provider publishes that, and seed tests only approximate it.
- It cannot separate subdomains reliably in the Deliverability Analysis, so a shared root domain blurs marketing and transactional signals together.
- It is not real time. Data lags by a day or more, so a fix applied today shows up later in the week.
A clean Postmaster dashboard is not proof that your email is performing. It is proof that Gmail has no complaint about it, which is a lower bar and a different question.
The ten-minute weekly routine
Six steps, same order every week. The value is in the trend, which means it only works if you actually do it weekly.
Step 1 — Check Compliance Status first
Pass or Needs Work. A failure here outranks everything else on the dashboard, because non-compliant mail is rejected rather than filtered.
Step 2 — Read the Deliverability Analysis verdict
One line, and it tells you which category of problem you have. USER_FEEDBACK_NEGATIVE or SPAM_RATE_HIGH means stop and act this week. MESSAGE_VOLUME_LOW means carry on.
Step 3 — Read spam rate by date, not as an average
Look for spikes. Match any spike against your send log and name the campaign that caused it.
Step 4 — Check authentication and encryption are at 100%
Anything less means an unauthenticated sending source. Confirm what it is with the Email Domain Scanner, and count your SPF lookups with the SPF Lookup Checker while you are there.
Step 5 — Scan delivery errors for a new category
A reason that was not there last week is the useful signal. Rate limiting means slow down; suspected spam means content or links; bad PTR means infrastructure.
Step 6 — Write down what you saw
Three lines in a note. Postmaster shows a limited window of history, and the trend is the diagnostic — a number is only meaningful against last week's number.
Add the annual habit while you are there: re-verify your DNS records after every site migration, host change or new tool connection. That is the single most common way authentication breaks, and it is covered in why your emails suddenly went to spam.
When the dashboard says the problem is your list. The Email Deliverability Playbook has the part this page hands off to — the day-by-day recovery protocol, the re-engagement and re-permission templates, and the 100-point audit scorecard that turns a vague "needs work" into a number you can measure again in a month.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Postmaster Tools still showing domain reputation?
No. Google retired the Domain Reputation and IP Reputation panels, and the High / Medium / Low / Bad grades with them, when v1 was withdrawn on 30 September 2025. They were replaced by Compliance Status and, from June 2026, the Deliverability Analysis verdict — both of which name a cause rather than a grade.
What is Deliverability Analysis in Postmaster Tools?
A plain-language verdict on why Gmail treats your mail the way it does, launched on 11 June 2026. It returns seven actionable statuses — covering positive engagement, low engagement, negative feedback, high spam rate, non-compliance, high SMTP errors and insufficient volume — plus an unspecified fallback. Each carries a recommended action.
Why is my Google Postmaster Tools dashboard empty?
Almost always volume. The practical floor is a few hundred messages a day to personal Gmail addresses, and Google's privacy thresholds suppress data on low-volume days. Compliance Status and Authentication populate before the engagement panels, so a partially blank dashboard is normal rather than broken.
What is a good spam rate in Postmaster Tools?
Under 0.05% is healthy. Google's stated limit is 0.1%, and crossing 0.3% withdraws eligibility for Gmail's mitigation support until the rate holds below the line for seven consecutive days. Read the figure by date rather than as an average, because a spike names the campaign that caused it.
Does Postmaster Tools show inbox placement?
No. Nothing reports what share of your mail reached the inbox rather than the Promotions tab or spam, because no provider publishes it. Seed tests approximate placement; Postmaster reports compliance, complaints and Gmail's verdict on engagement.
Does Google Postmaster Tools cover Google Workspace recipients?
No. The data covers personal Gmail addresses, so a heavily B2B sender may see very little even at reasonable volume. Corporate recipients on Workspace and on gateways such as Mimecast or Proofpoint are invisible to it.
What does USER_FEEDBACK_LOW mean?
Your mail is being delivered and recipients are not acting on it. It is a relevance and segmentation problem rather than a technical one, and it is distinct from USER_FEEDBACK_NEGATIVE, which means people are actively marking your mail unwanted. Confusing the two leads senders to fix the wrong thing.
How often should I check Postmaster Tools?
Weekly, for about ten minutes. Data lags by a day or more and the diagnostic value is in the trend rather than any single reading, so a consistent weekly check catches problems in week one instead of month three.
What to do next
Verify your domain in Postmaster Tools today if you have not, because history only accumulates from the day you add it. There is nothing to see for the first week and that is expected.
Then check Compliance Status and the Deliverability Analysis verdict. Between them, those two readings tell you whether you have a technical problem, a list problem, or no problem.
Free: The 60-Minute Email Authentication Fix — the checklist that clears Compliance Status, which is the reading that outranks everything else on the dashboard.
Related guides
- Email deliverability: why authenticated emails still land in spam — the three-factor model behind every verdict
- Why your emails suddenly went to spam — when the dashboard confirms a sudden drop
- Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft bulk sender requirements — what Compliance Status is checking
- Email authentication: SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI — fixing a SENDER_NOT_COMPLIANT verdict
- Email list building that doesn't wreck deliverability — fixing a USER_FEEDBACK_NEGATIVE verdict at source
- Email bounce rate: what's normal and how to fix it — reading the delivery errors panel
Free tools used in this guide
The short version
- Check Compliance Status firstA Pass or Needs Work verdict against Gmail's bulk sender requirements. A failure here outranks everything else, because non-compliant mail is rejected rather than filtered.
- Read the Deliverability Analysis verdictOne line naming which category of problem you have. Negative user feedback or a high spam rate means act this week; low message volume means nothing is wrong.
- Read spam rate by date rather than as an averageLook for spikes and match each one against your send log to name the campaign that caused it.
- Confirm authentication and encryption are at 100%Anything less means a sending source you have not authenticated. Verify your records with a domain scanner and count your SPF lookups.
- Scan delivery errors for a new categoryA reason that was not there last week is the signal. Rate limiting means slow down, suspected spam means content or links, bad PTR means infrastructure.
- Write down what you sawThree lines in a note. Postmaster keeps a limited history and the trend is the diagnostic, so this week's number is only meaningful against last week's.
Free: The 60-Minute Email Authentication Fix
A no-fluff checklist to set up SPF, DKIM & DMARC correctly and pass Gmail & Yahoo's sender requirements.
Muhammad Basim has worked in digital marketing since 2013, focused on email deliverability and AI-assisted content production. He is the author of The Email Deliverability Playbook and The Email Copywriting Playbook.
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