> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.politicalcomms.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Google Postmaster Tools

> How Gmail's own view of your sending reaches your dashboard, what the one TXT record does, and why a new sender sees no data at first.

Gmail is usually the largest single slice of a political email list, and it is
the only mailbox provider that will tell you what it thinks of your mail. Google
Postmaster Tools is that channel. The platform connects your domain to it for
you and shows the numbers next to everything else about the domain, so you do
not have to run a separate Google account or remember to go look.

## What you have to do

One thing: **publish a TXT record.** It appears in your record set on
**Admin > Domains** alongside the DKIM and MAIL FROM records, as a
`google-site-verification=` value on your **root** domain (not the sending
subdomain, because Postmaster works at the organizational domain level).

Everything else is automatic:

<Steps>
  <Step title="We register the domain">
    The platform's own Google account registers your domain in Postmaster Tools
    and asks Google for an ownership token.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The token appears in your record set">
    The Postmaster row shows no value until Google issues the token. Once it
    appears, publish it at your root domain.
  </Step>

  <Step title="We ask Google to verify">
    The platform re-checks with Google every 10 minutes for about five hours.
    Our own DNS lookup seeing the record is not enough: only Google confirming
    it counts as verified, because only Google can say whether Google accepted
    it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Numbers arrive nightly">
    Once verified, a nightly job pulls Gmail's figures for the domain.
  </Step>
</Steps>

You never need a Google account, and you never give us access to one.

## Where the numbers show up

The Postmaster panel appears in two places: on the **sender identity** page for
the identity's domain, and on **Admin > Domains** for the domain itself. It
shows:

| Reading              | What it means                                                                                                                                                                           |
| -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Spam rate**        | The share of your Gmail mail that recipients marked as spam. This is the number that matters most.                                                                                      |
| **SPF, DKIM, DMARC** | The share of your Gmail mail that passed each authentication check. These should sit at or near 100%. Anything materially lower means some of your mail is not being signed or aligned. |
| **Compliance**       | Google's own bulk-sender requirement table, requirement by requirement, as Google scores it.                                                                                            |

Two things it deliberately does not show:

* **Domain and IP reputation are not displayed.** Google's older Postmaster API
  reported a reputation grade; the current version does not expose one at all.
  Rather than print a fabricated or stale grade, the panel leaves it out. Spam
  rate and the compliance table are the live signals.
* **A missing number reads "No data yet", never 0%.** A spam rate of zero and a
  spam rate Google has not reported are very different results, and showing the
  second as the first would be the most flattering possible lie.

## Why a new sender sees nothing

Google only publishes figures for a domain sending **meaningful daily volume to
Gmail**. Below that floor it returns no rows at all, so a new domain, a small
list, or a domain that has only sent tests will show "No data yet" for a while.

There is also a built-in lag. Gmail aggregates a day's traffic well after that
day ends, so the platform reads a window ending about two days back. Sending
today and checking tonight will show you nothing new; that is the reporting
window, not a problem with your domain.

<Note>
  **None of this affects your sending.** Postmaster Tools is a reporting channel,
  not a gate. A domain that never verifies, or that Google has no data for, sends
  exactly as well as one with a full dashboard. If it is showing "no data", the
  answer is usually to keep sending good mail and check back in a week.
</Note>

## Spam rate alerts

Google's published bulk-sender threshold is to keep reported spam **below 0.3%**
and never reach it. The platform alerts your organization when your peak
reported spam rate reaches **0.2%**, so there is room to act before Gmail does.
The alert fires at most once a week per organization, because the condition
takes days to move and a daily repeat of the same bad news is not useful.

If it fires, the cause is nearly always list quality rather than content: an
acquired list that was not validated, a segment that has not been mailed in a
year, or a cadence that got too aggressive. See
[Bounces, complaints, and suppressions](/help/email/bounces-complaints-and-suppressions)
and the [sunset policy](/help/email/bounces-complaints-and-suppressions#the-sunset-policy).

## When the domain is already claimed

Postmaster lets exactly one Google account own a domain. If someone at your
organization, or a former vendor, already registered it, the panel says
**Claimed by another account** and gives you the two ways forward:

1. Ask the current owner to add our platform account as an owner of the domain
   in their Postmaster Tools, or
2. Ask them to delete the domain from their Postmaster Tools so we can register
   it.

Either one unblocks it. In the meantime the domain keeps sending normally; you
are only missing the reporting.

## Statuses

| Status                         | Meaning                                                                    |
| ------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Not connected**              | Registration has not been started for this domain.                         |
| **Add the TXT record**         | Google issued a token. Publish it at your root domain.                     |
| **Verifying**                  | The record is published and we are waiting on Google to confirm it.        |
| **Verified**                   | Confirmed. Gmail's figures are flowing, subject to the volume floor above. |
| **Claimed by another account** | Another Google account owns the domain. See above.                         |
| **Verification failed**        | Google did not confirm within the retry window. **Try again** restarts it. |

This is also where a verified [Gmail Verified Sender Program](/help/email/gmail-verified-sender-program)
status is confirmed: Google exposes no program field over its API, so staff
read it from this same Postmaster compliance view for the domain.