It takes time, money, and energy to build an email list, craft an email copy that sells, and use email sending services.

Every email marketer likes to deliver his message to the intended recipient.

What if the intended recipient never gets to see your message?

It results in frustrations.

Invalid email address, spammy content, the harmful attachments can result in email rejection.

However, we can fix these problems quickly.

What happens if you are blacklisted?

Your emails will never reach to recipient’s inbox unless you fix the things.

However, the solutions are complicated. For this, you have to find the reason for being on the blacklist.

Introduction to an email blacklist

An email blacklist consists of domain names and email addresses of the users who have a history of sending spammy emails. These lists are organized and managed by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), companies, organizations, and independent operators.

Some of the big names include:

Spamhaus Black List:

The Spamhaus email blacklist includes a list of IP addresses that are involved in spammy activities. This list recommends not to receive emails from those IP addresses. Email systems can search this database in real-time. Spamhaus is located in 10 countries. A team of forensic specialists and researchers manage and maintain this database.

Spamhaus Exploits Blacklist

This email includes the IP addresses of those computers that have been hijacked, infected with viruses, and possibly exploited by spammers and scammers. Spamhaus manage and maintain the Exploits Blacklist (XBL).

Composite Blocking List:

CBL lists the IP addresses which are being used by open proxies and bots to deliver the spam. Spamhaus also manages this list.

URIBL

This email blacklist contains a list of domains that are involved in spammy activities. The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email service providers use the URIBL to catch the suspicious links.‌‌

SenderScore‌‌

Just like a credit score, the SenderScore rates the senders from 0 to 100. This rating depends on spam complaints, sending emails to unknown users, and matrics from other blacklists.‌‌

LashBack‌‌

LasBack list contains a list of almost a million IP addresses. It tracks the IP addresses which are sending emails to those present in the list. LashBack is unique in terms of its operations because it works in real-time.‌‌

Barracuda Reputation Block List‌‌

BRBL is a free source to check for those IP addresses which are known to send spam.‌‌

It’s worth mentioning here that email providers like Gmail and Yahoo maintain their blacklists. They are not available for public access.‌‌

You can use a tool like email list verify to check the presence of an email associated with a blacklisted IP address or domain name.

Email blacklist mechanism

‌‌Basically, all blacklists have the same mechanism. The bots from email blacklists services keep an eye on your email sending and receiving process. When you try to send an email, your IP address is checked for the blacklist’s record. Different blacklists have different records depending upon various factors. Your email is delivered if your IP has a clean history. Otherwise, your email is rejected.

Here are some reasons why IP addresses or domain names are blacklisted:

A sudden increase in the number of emails: Legitimate email users don’t send thousands of emails at once. They send targeted emails to a limited number of subscribers. On the other hand, spammers try to send email messages blindly. A sudden increase in the number of sent emails can get you in a blacklist.

Spammy content: Good email content consists of an excellent copy and one or two links to the legitimate websites. On the other hand, spammy content consists of URLs of malicious content, websites, and suspicious attachments.

The bounce rate: Good email lists contain active and valid email addresses only. The spammers mostly use bad email lists containing invalid and dead emails. Mostly, these email addresses are collected through scraping or from the dark web. A bad email list results in a high bounce rate. As a result, it increases your chances of getting into a blacklist.

Spam complaints: Every email provider offers an option to users to mark an email as spam. If a major portion of your audience marks your email as spam, you will find your IP or domain name in a blacklist. Email and service providers take spam complaints very seriously.

How to get rid of a blacklist?

There are hundreds of email blacklists. There is a possibility that you have already been included in a blacklist. If you find your domain or URL in a major email blacklist, try to get removed. You can take the following steps to get rid of a blacklist:

  • Keep an eye on the bounce rate and spam complaints. Less bounce rate and no complaints mean you will be removed from the list automatically.
  • Read the guide present on the official website of a blacklist. It explains the whole process. If you think you aren’t involved in any of the spammy activities, you can contact the blacklist owners. They will monitor your activities for some days. If eligible, your domain and IP will be removed from the list.
  • In case the blacklist owners haven’t mentioned any formal process to get rid of the blacklist, you can contact your email sending service. They will contact the blacklist maintaining companies to get your domain and IP removed.

Conclusion

It’s easy to get into a blacklist. But it’s challenging to get rid of. You can decrease your chances of getting into a blacklist using a double opt-in process, keeping an eye on key statistics like bounce rate, open rate, complaints rate, and click-through-rate. A clean and verified list is the key to a great email campaign.

An email checker can help you clean and verify the list. A verified email means zero bounce rate. Furthermore, when your bounce rate is zero, you can expect good results in email marketing. Plus, you will always find yourself protected from all kinds of blacklists.