Email sent from your website explained

Your website sends email automatically in many situations, when a customer places an order, submits a contact form, or resets their password. These emails often go wrong without anyone realizing it. This guide explains how they work and what's needed to keep them reliable.

What kinds of email does my website send?

Most websites send several types of automatic email:

Contact form notificationsAn email to you when someone fills out your contact form
Order confirmationsAn email to customers after they place an order
New order alertsAn email to you or your team when a new order comes in
Password reset emailsA link for users to reset their password
Account welcome emailsSent when someone creates an account
Booking and appointment confirmations
Shipping notifications (if you have an e-commerce store)
Invoice and payment receipts

All of these are transactional emails. They're triggered by a specific action, and the recipient expects them.

How does a website send email?

When your website needs to send an email, it uses one of two methods:

Method 1: PHP mail / server's built-in mail function

The simplest method: the hosting server sends the email directly. This often works out of the box but has serious drawbacks:

Low deliverability: emails frequently land in spam
No DKIM signature of its own: the mail function doesn't sign messages, so unless the host has set signing up separately, your messages go out unsigned
No visibility into whether emails are being delivered

We recommend avoiding this for any business-critical email.

Method 2: SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

SMTP connects your website to a proper email-sending service. Your website authenticates with the service (like using a username and password) and hands off the email to be delivered reliably.

This is the right approach. See What is SMTP? for a full explanation.

Method 1: PHP mail

Deliverability

Emails frequently land in spam.

Signing

No DKIM signature of its own.

Visibility

None into whether emails are delivered.

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Method 2: SMTP

Deliverability

Hands the email to a proper sending service.

Signing

Authenticated, DKIM-signed email.

Visibility

Delivery tracking and logs.

Both paths reach the same mail server. The difference is what the email is carrying when it gets there, and that is what decides which folder it lands in.

Read this as text

Your website sends email on its own: contact form notifications, order confirmations, password resets. Where that email goes next depends on one setting.

With SMTP configured, the site logs in to a real mail service using a username, password and server address. That service signs the message and keeps delivery logs, then passes it to the recipient’s mail server. Because the message is authenticated and the sending service has its own reputation, it normally lands in the inbox.

Without it, the site falls back to a basic server function called PHP mail. The message goes to the same recipient server, but with no authentication signature, no delivery log, and a sending reputation shared with every other site on that server, so if any of them sends spam, yours is doubted too. Some hosts block it outright.

Same sender, same recipient, same destination server. The only difference is what the email can prove about itself on arrival, and that is what decides the folder.

What is a transactional email service?

Transactional email services are specialized platforms built to send automated emails reliably and at scale. Popular options include:

Service	Best for
Postmark	Reliability and speed for transactional email
SendGrid	High volume; check its pricing page for current plans and limits
Mailgun	Developer-focused; flexible
Amazon SES	High volume; more technical to set up
Your email platform's SMTP	Small sites sending low volume (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365). Both cap how much you can send, and Microsoft 365 may need authenticated SMTP switched on for the mailbox first

These services provide:

Authenticated email (DKIM signed)
Delivery tracking and logs
Bounce handling
High deliverability

When Chykalophia builds your website, we configure one of these services so your automatic emails work reliably.

Why website emails often land in spam

If your contact form confirmation or order email is going to spam, the usual causes are:

No SMTP configured: the site is using the server's basic mail function
DKIM not set up: the emails are not signed, so spam filters are suspicious
SPF record doesn't include the sending service: the service isn't authorized to send on behalf of your domain
The email content looks like spam: generic subject lines, no address, etc.

Form emails going to your own spam

If your contact form notifications go to your own spam folder, the fix is usually on your end. Add the sender address to your contacts or safelist. But if customer order confirmations go to their spam, that needs to be fixed at the server level.

What Chykalophia does to set this up

When we build or set up your website, we:

Connect your site to a reputable SMTP service or transactional email provider
Configure DKIM signing for emails sent from your site
Add the sending service to your SPF record
Test key emails (forms, orders, password resets) to confirm delivery

If you're having problems with emails from your website, let us know. This is something we can diagnose and fix quickly.

Common questions

I just launched a new site and my contact form emails aren't arriving. What should I do?

Check your spam folder first. If they're not even in spam, SMTP is likely not configured. Contact Chykalophia and we'll set it up.

My WooCommerce order confirmation emails stopped working. Why?

This usually happens after a plugin update, a hosting change, or if your SMTP credentials expired. WooCommerce records every transactional email it tries to send, so that's the place to start: go to WooCommerce → Status → Logs and open the log source named transactional-emails. Each entry says whether the email was sent, failed, disabled or skipped. If the entries you expect aren't there, check WooCommerce → Status → Logs → Settings to confirm logging is switched on. Contact Chykalophia if you need help diagnosing it.

Can I use my Google Workspace email as the SMTP server for my site?

Yes, for low-volume sites this works well. However, Google caps how many messages an account can send per day, so for high-volume stores a dedicated service is better. Microsoft 365 is similar, with one extra catch: authenticated SMTP is switched off for organizations created after January 2020, so an admin has to enable it on the mailbox before a website can use it.

What's the difference between website email and my personal inbox?

Your website sends automatic emails using server-side code. Your personal inbox (Gmail, Outlook) is separate. Changes to one don't affect the other, though they may share the same domain name and DNS records.