What’s Gmail’s approach to “domain reputation vs IP reputation”?

Gmail's approach prioritizes domain reputation over IP reputation for most senders. While IP reputation still matters, Gmail recognizes that shared sending infrastructure makes IP based filtering less reliable. Your domain reputation follows you regardless of which IPs you use.

This shift benefits senders using ESPs with shared IP pools but creates accountability at the domain level. You cannot escape bad reputation by switching providers if your domain carries the damage. Conversely, good domain reputation provides resilience against temporary IP issues.

Gmail Postmaster Tools reports domain reputation separately from IP reputation, helping you understand which needs attention. For most marketers, focusing on domain reputation through good sending practices, authentication, and engagement optimization yields better results than obsessing over IP reputation alone.