Mails can bounce back with the message ” Your message is blocked for low reputation”, or similar. If you wonder: it is likely that your e-mail landed on an e-mail server blacklist! This happens when your domain/mail server IP is blacklisted by any 3rd party anti-spam agency. Eg: Spamhaus, RBL, CBL, etc. Also, many mail servers reject such emails outright if the mails look suspicious and have a probability of being spam mail. Your mail can be flagged for spam and get rejected.
This can even happen if your are not a spammer and if your e-mails have no bad intention. If your e-mails are blocked due to blacklisting there are things you can do to remove your mail address from the list. We give you some information about that further below. However, more important, we like to give you some hints how you can avoid that your e-mail address is putted on a blacklist:
What steps to take to keep away from blacklists?
In order not to be taken for a spammer, prevent as act like one 😉 Here are some items you may consider to make sure to send mails which are not suspicious:
There are lots of emails sent from your mail address/domain in a relatively short time spam. This can cause your mails to get flagged and get blocked for mass mailing.
Your mail subject or body contains suspicious words or strings which are frequently used by spammers. Eg: ‘viagra’, ‘buy now’, ‘lowest prices’, ‘click here’, etc. Also, mails with blinking text, flashy fonts, etc are flagged by antispam tools.
You are sending from a mail server that has been blacklisted in past. This can easily trigger a spam flag as your sending IP has a low reputation. In this case, you can try using another SMTP server to send emails or ask your host to change the SMTP server IP
Bulk mailing without authenticated SMTP server can also cause mails to get blocked. Using PHP mail() function is now rejected by many mail servers. Mail sent using PHP mail() was mostly abused by spammers in past. You must use an SMTP mail server with authentication to send mails.
Mails which does not contain valid ‘unsubscribe’ links and ‘From’ address are also flagged as suspicious emails. Having too many CC recipients must be avoided.
Ensure your domain has valid SPF, DKIM and DMARC records. The absence of these records reduces the level of trust of the mail sender.
Also to check your spamminess, you can use e.g. this tool https://www.mail-tester.com/. This will give you information why your mail is getting rejected or lands in the spam folder – however since this is a third party tool, Servage cant give any guarantee for this service.
How to get off blacklists?
The bounce back notification will give you some information about whether your e-mail IP is blacklisted. You can use various tools online to check if you are blacklisted. One such popular tool is:
https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx
If you found out that your email IP or domain appear on any of the blacklists, your first step should be to check the unlisting process for a particular blacklist. Usually the blacklister gives information about the unlist process on their webpages. If you need help with this matter, you are always free to contact the Servage support. You can easily open a support ticket via your Servage control panel and let us know what e-mail address is concerned and what bounce back notification you received.