What to do if listed in Spamhaus and other blacklists?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from an Email Deliverability Blog advises gradually warming up new IP addresses by slowly increasing sending volume. This helps establish a positive sending reputation with ISPs and reduces the likelihood of being flagged as a spammer and added to blacklists.
Email marketer from Mailjet recommends using monitoring tools to proactively track your IP and domain reputation, enabling you to identify and address blacklisting issues before they significantly impact deliverability. They also emphasize the importance of maintaining clean email lists and adhering to email marketing best practices.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that Spamhaus bounces will resolve themselves and suggests looking into other blacklists.
Email marketer from GlockApps advocates for using blacklist monitoring services to proactively track your IP and domain health. These services alert you to blacklistings as they occur, allowing you to take immediate action to mitigate the impact on deliverability.
Email marketer from an Email Marketing Forum suggests using a dedicated IP address to build and maintain a positive sending reputation. This allows you to isolate your sending practices from those of shared IP users, reducing the risk of being blacklisted due to their activities.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that each blacklist has its own removal process. They recommend identifying the specific blacklist, understanding their criteria for listing, and following their removal instructions, which may involve filling out a form, verifying your identity, or demonstrating that you've resolved the issue.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that avoiding spam traps is crucial. They recommend using double opt-in, regularly cleaning your email list, and ensuring that your signup forms are not attracting bots or fake email addresses.
Email marketer from Reddit explains that the impact varies based on the blacklist. Listing on major lists like Spamhaus can cause significant deliverability issues, while smaller lists might have negligible impact. They recommend focusing on the major lists and understanding why you were listed in the first place.
Email marketer from Talos Intelligence shares that it is important to check your sender reputation, and fix any that are causing blacklisting.
What the experts say7Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource advocates for continuous monitoring of your sending reputation using tools and services that track IP and domain health. They recommend proactively addressing any negative indicators and implementing best practices to improve your reputation over time.
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that analyzing bounceback messages is crucial for identifying blacklist issues. The bounce messages often contain specific information about which blacklist is causing the delivery failure, enabling targeted remediation efforts.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that consistent sending volume, and authentic engagement from your recipients helps show good sending reputation which helps you avoid blacklists in the first place.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that most blacklists aren't used widely, but some correlate with actual issues. Marketer Vytis Marciulionis only suggests inspecting Surgate, and recommends using Glock Apps to find out about blacklists accuracy.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that the metric for whether a list matters is if getting bounces from it. Outside of mail being affected, there are maybe 6 lists that matter and anything with a non .com/.net/.org TLD is regional, also visiting the website tells you a lot about the list.
Expert from Email Geeks shares to check if actually listed on Spamhaus using multirbl.valli.org/lookup/ while they clean up data.
Expert from Spam Resource explains the importance of understanding the different types of blacklists (e.g., reputation-based, complaint-based, honeypot-based) and their respective impact on email deliverability. They advise prioritizing removal from high-impact lists that are commonly used by ISPs.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from MXToolbox shares that you can use their tool to check if your IP or domain is listed on various blacklists. It identifies the listed blacklists and provides links to the respective delisting procedures.
Documentation from Spamhaus explains the delisting process, which involves identifying the reason for listing, fixing the issue (e.g., compromised server, spamming activity), and then requesting delisting through their website. They emphasize that delisting is not guaranteed and depends on the severity and resolution of the issue.
Documentation from Spamhaus describes the Data Query Tool, which allows you to check the status of an IP address or domain on their various blocklists. It provides details about the reason for listing and instructions on how to proceed with delisting.
Documentation from DigitalOcean focuses on prevention, highlighting practices like maintaining proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, keeping software updated, and monitoring outbound email activity to prevent future blacklisting incidents.
Documentation from Microsoft details how to interpret bounce messages. They suggest analyzing bounce codes and error messages to identify the reasons for delivery failures, including potential blacklisting issues. This helps in troubleshooting and resolving deliverability problems.