Being on a blacklist can seriously impact your email deliverability, as emails from blacklisted entities are often blocked or sent to spam folders. Therefore, removing your emails from the blacklist requires identifying a specific blacklist, addressing the issues that caused the blacklisting, and following the removal procedures outlined by the blacklisting authority. Understanding how to manage this process is crucial to restoring your email deliverability and maintaining effective communication with your audience.
What is Blacklist?
A blacklist is a compiled skylead features list of IP addresses or domain names that have been identified by email service providers as sources of spam or unwanted emails.
When an email address or domain is blacklisted, it indicates to email servers that emails from those sources may not be trustworthy or desired by recipients.
This can result in emails from blacklisted addresses being filtered or marked as spam, which can be very costly to an organization as it can reduce the chances of them reaching recipients’ inboxes, lowering overall email deliverability rates.
How to Check If Your Emails Are Blacklisted and Who Protects Them
Understanding whether your implement automated messaging emails are blacklisted is crucial to maintaining high email deliverability.
Various organisations, including Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Anti-Spam Agencies (ASAs), maintain three types of blacklists:
- Public blacklist: Public blacklists are available to anyone. They allow individuals to check if an email IP/domain is blacklisted for free.
- Custom blacklists: Some email service providers, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, actively monitor and update their blacklists, quickly adding suspicious senders.
- Corporate spam firewalls: Many well-known organizations keep extensive records of spam domains and IP addresses. Even large mailbox providers like Gmail rely on these third-party services, as well as their own databases, to filter out unwanted email.
If you’re wondering if your emails consumer data are blacklisted, it can be helpful to know what’s popular and how difficult it is to get out. Check out the table below, which lists common blacklists and their difficulty levels from 1 to 5:
| Blacklist | Difficulty | Rating (out of 5) |
| Passive Spam Block List (PSBL) | Low | 2 |
| Barracuda | Low | 2 |
| Composite Blocking List (CBL) | Middle | 3 |
| Spamcop | Medium | 3 |
| Invalidation | Middle | 3 |
| XBL Exploits Block List | High | 4 |
| Spamhaus Block List (SBL) | Very High | 5 |
| SenderScore | Very High | 5 |
Why Does Your IP/Domain Get Blacklisted?
Email Service Providers (ESPs) rely on spam filters to manage incoming emails. These filters determine whether your emails are delivered, marked as suspicious, or rejected entirely.
It’s important to understand why your IP address or domain name has been blacklisted. Some common reasons include:
- Sending Unwanted Emails : If you send emails to people who have not signed up to receive emails, you may be blacklisted.
- High Spam Complaints: If many recipients mark your emails as spam, email providers may label you as a spammer and blacklist you.
- Using Purchased Email Lists: Using old or purchased email lists can get you blacklisted because those email addresses may no longer be valid.
- Email Account Hacking : If someone hacks your email account and uses it to send spam, your email address may be blacklisted.
- Sending to Spoofed Addresses : If your email account is compromised and used to send spam, your email address may end up on a blacklist.