At MxToolbox, we occasionally see a domain on an IP blacklist as a source of spam or malware when the owner of the domain has done nothing wrong. This article will discuss the issue and potential solutions.
The first thing we always recommend to customers with a potential spam or malware problem is to review the following things:
- Have you violated any CAN-SPAM regulations recently?
- Have you had a virus or malware outbreak in the recent past?
- Do you run your own mailserver? Has it been on a blacklist recently?
If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you may have earned your spot on the blacklist but we can still help you with some tools and techniques. Learn more about our blacklist solutions.
If the answer to all of these questions is “No”, you may still be on a blacklist through no fault of your own. If you are hosting your domain in a shared environment, it is typical that the IP address associated with your domain is the same as the IP address associated with several other domains. These shared environments use the same servers for multiple domains. In this case, the IP address of the server has been blacklisted. This may be due to one of the other domains on this server having trouble with spam or malware. It’s not your fault, you’re tainted by association.
What can you do?
You have a few options that involve talking to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). First, you must notify your ISP that your shared host has a blacklist issue. This problem affects all the domains hosted on that server and your ISP needs to notify other customers on the affected server. Also, they may need to protect other servers, or run anti-virus and anti-malware protection on the server as the blacklisting may have been as a result of an infection. Second, you can ask your ISP to move your domain and website to another server or have the IP address of your server changed to one that is not blacklisted. If the domain that caused the blacklisting remains on the same server, however, your blacklist problem will only go away temporarily. Another option is to move your domain to a dedicated host, where you are not sharing a server. This may be more expensive but will make you entirely responsible for the blacklist health of your domain.
MxToolbox email experts can help you with everything you need around blacklists, including:
- Lookup tools for identifying the blacklists you are on
- Monitoring tools to constantly watch your domains and IP addresses for inclusion on a blacklist (and our paid monitoring solutions come with our top-notch support)
- Information on blacklist and links to the blacklist, including delisting resources.
We also offer a turn-key Domain Health Monitoring solution that automatically monitors all the important aspects of your domain, from blacklists to email to website health.
Contact us to learn more.