How do URLs in newsletters affect email deliverability and what tools can assess URL reputation?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit recommends using VirusTotal and Sucuri SiteCheck to scan URLs for malware and security issues before including them in email campaigns, ensuring a safe user experience.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that maintaining a positive brand reputation is critical for email deliverability. It involves using URLs that align with the brand and not linking to suspicious content.
Email marketer from Email Geeks encourages the use of statistical tools to analyze the impact of domains on bounce/click rates. Suggests modeling the effect of specific domains appearing in newsletters to identify problematic ones and recommends consulting a data scientist for suitable approaches like Media Mix Modeling or multiple regression.
Email marketer from GlockApps says URL blacklisting directly affects deliverability by causing emails to be flagged as spam or blocked entirely. Regular monitoring for URL blacklisting is essential.
Email marketer from Neil Patel Blog explains that a poor URL reputation can negatively impact email deliverability by triggering spam filters. Factors like the URL's history, content, and association with blacklisted domains contribute to its reputation.
Email marketer from Warrior Forum suggests using tools like Redirect Detective to check the full redirect chain of a URL, ensuring that there are no unexpected or malicious redirects that could harm deliverability.
Email marketer from SendPulse shares that assessing URL reputation involves checking if the URL is blacklisted, if it redirects to suspicious sites, and if it has a valid SSL certificate. Tools like VirusTotal and URLVoid can help with this assessment.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce mentions monitoring domain reputation to help with deliverability as it's a metric for assessing the trustworthiness of your email sending practices, including the URLs you use.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that URLs can influence sender reputation if they lead to malicious or low-quality content. Consistent use of reputable URLs builds trust with ISPs, improving deliverability.
Email marketer from Gmass explains URL shortening services can negatively affect deliverability if the shortened URLs are associated with spam or lead to untrustworthy content. Using custom tracking domains is a better solution.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that if you own the domain in the email and it redirects to the final destination (like generic click tracking), it avoids most of the URL reputation issue. If already implemented, other factors should be investigated first if deliverability issues persist.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that URL redirects can impact reputation because some mailbox providers look at the final destination and some consider the intermediate hops. Using a reputable URL shortening service or a custom domain for redirects is advisable.
Expert from Word to the Wise responds that a domain's reputation directly impacts deliverability, as mailbox providers use it to determine whether to accept, filter, or block emails. Consistently sending valuable content from URLs with good reputation is crucial.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that URL reputation is primarily known by the mailbox provider. He suggests looking for domains in the email body that are used by others and assessing the likelihood of their association with bad actors, especially within affiliate programs.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Spamhaus explains that their Domain Block List (DBL) identifies domains with poor reputation due to spam or malware activity. Checking URLs against the DBL can help determine their impact on deliverability.
Documentation from URLscan.io details its service, allowing users to scan URLs for malicious content, redirection chains, and other security risks, helping to identify potentially harmful URLs before including them in email campaigns.
Documentation from VirusTotal states it aggregates multiple antivirus engines and website scanners to analyze files and URLs for malware and other security threats. Using VirusTotal helps identify potentially harmful URLs for improved email deliverability.
Documentation from Microsoft details how Safe Links in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 protects users by scanning URLs in emails and Office apps. This helps ensure that users don't access malicious websites, improving overall email security and deliverability for the sender.
Documentation from Google Search Central details how the Safe Browsing tool helps protect users by identifying and flagging unsafe websites. This directly impacts email deliverability when URLs in emails are flagged as unsafe.