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Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail. Got this message today? Here's how to deal with it!
Ever got this message from Google?
421 — Gmail has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail. To protect our users from spam, mail has been temporarily rate limited.
If you're getting this message it means that you have not configured your mailing software to be compliant with Google or Yahoos new guidelines. They were supposed to launch next year but seem to already be rolling out.
In short, this means you must authenticate your emails (SPF + DKIM) if you plan on sending more than 5,000 messages in any given day.
You can learn more about Googles guidelines here.
The general playbook we run if a user hits this is to authenticate their domain using our Sender Authentication tool, drastically reduce how many emails they are sending in an hour using our batching feature, and additionally segment or clean their list.
If you're a Bento customer please reach out on support and we can help you with this.