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Deliverability

What if my domain or IP is on a blocklist?

A blocklist (also called a blacklist or DNSBL) is a public list of domains and mail-server IP addresses that have been reported for spam. Mailbox providers and spam filters check these lists on every message. If your domain or the server your mail leaves from is listed, a lot of your email will be sent to spam or rejected outright until the listing is removed.

Warmerly checks for listings for you. If one is found, you get an alert email (unless you turned alert emails off) and the Health tab of the mailbox shows Your domain is blocklisted or Your mail server's IP is blocklisted, with the list names.

Where to see it

  1. Go to Accounts and click the mailbox.
  2. Open the Health tab.
  3. Look at the Blocklists row of the domain health card. Expand it to see each list and what the listing means.

For a domain check with no account, use the free blacklist checker.

What Warmerly checks

  • Six domain lists: Spamhaus DBL, SURBL, URIBL, NordSpam, Spam Eating Monkey and s5h.
  • Ten IP lists: including Spamhaus ZEN, SpamCop, Barracuda, PSBL, Mailspike, NordSpam, Spam Eating Monkey, Lashback, DroneBL and GBUdb.

Blocklists are re-checked about every six hours. Re-check now on the card re-reads DNS at once but may reuse a recent blocklist result.

Which listings matter

Domain listed. Your sending domain was reported. This is the serious one, because it follows you across every mailbox on that domain.

IP listed. The mail server your mailbox submits through was reported. If you use Gmail or Microsoft 365, Warmerly does not check an IP for you, because your mail leaves from the provider's shared servers and you cannot delist those. If you use a small or self-hosted server, this is your address.

Policy listing (for example Spamhaus PBL). The card says "This IP range isn't meant for sending". That means the range is a home or office connection that providers do not expect to send mail directly. It is not a report that you sent spam, and you do not request delisting. If you send through an email host, ask the host about it.

Clean on some lists, others did not answer. Some lists refuse automated lookups sometimes. This is not a listing, and the card says how many did not answer.

Unknown. The check could not complete. It is not a listing. It will be retried.

What to do when you are listed

  1. Stop cold sending from that domain while you sort it out. Keep warmup running.
  2. Find out why. The usual causes are a purchased or old list with many bad addresses, a sudden jump in volume from a new mailbox, a compromised mailbox, or spammy links in your copy. Check your campaign's bounce rate and your recent content.
  3. Fix the cause first. Delisting requests for a problem that is still happening are refused or the listing comes back.
  4. Request removal on the list's own site. The blocklist row links to the right page for each list. The main ones are:
  5. Wait, then re-check. Some lists remove you within hours, others expire listings after days. Warmerly cannot remove a listing for you and cannot speed up a list's decision.

If the mailbox is a OneMail mailbox that Warmerly hosts for you, the mail server IP is Warmerly's rather than yours, so ask Warmi or support instead of requesting removal yourself. See OneMail mailboxes.

Also from Warmerly's side

If your bounce rate climbs, Warmerly slows and then pauses campaign sending on its own, which protects your domain from getting this far. See Why did sending slow down or pause?.

Common problems

The card says listed but the list's own site says clean. A listing may have just expired. Use Re-check now in a few hours.

I was delisted and it came back. The cause is still happening. Check list quality (verify addresses before you send) and volume.

Everything says "not checked" or unknown. The blocklists could not be queried. This is not a clean result. Try again later, or use the free checker.

Related

Something unclear or out of date? Ask Warmi in the chat, or email support@warmerly.com.