How To Delist Spamhaus DBL
It can be frustrating having your mails classified as unscrupulous spam and blocked from reaching your target audience. This can affect your ability to reach out to your clients, prospective clients, mentees, followers and so on. This can cost you money in lost revenue and time which you may need to find alternatives for delivering your mails.
Spamhaus DBL may be the cause of your frustrations. When your domain is on the Spamhaus DBL, your mails are prevented from reaching most mailbox users. You do not need to panic. It is totally reversible. That is why this article is designed to teach you how to delist Spamhaus DBL. But before we go into how to delist Spamhaus DBL, let’s find out what Spamhaus DBL really is.
What is Spamhaus DBL?
Spamhaus DBL is run by a company known as Spamhaus. It as an international organization which track spammers and spam-like activities. The services of Spamhaus are used by mailbox providers to protect themselves against spam and spam-like activities. Spamhaus run other blacklist services but Spamhaus DBL is the only domain-based blacklist. Hence, it’s possible that while you learn how to delist Spamhaus DBL, you’ll also need to learn about the other blacklist services provided by Spamhaus.
Spamhaus DBL mean Spamhaus Domain Block List. It is a list of domain names with poor reputations for spamming, phishing or other illegal activities. A domain on Spamhaus DBL will not be allowed to successfully send mails to mailbox users who use mailboxes that subscribe to Spamhaus protection.
Why Do Spamhaus Block Domains?
Generally, a domain would be blocked if it engages in unscrupulous, illegal activities or develop a bad reputation. If a domain is linked to an IP address with a bad reputation, it is likely that the domain will be painted with the same brush. An anonymous IP address can also make a domain look suspicious and cause it to be included in the blacklist. Other reasons why a domain can be blacklisted include:
Technical issues: This could be as a result of server misconfiguration, DNS record errors, and other technical or coding faults. These can make your domain server behave as if it contains malware. Needless to say, Spamhaus doesn’t like malwares.
Spamming: If spam or spam-like activity is detected to be originating from a domain, it is likely to be flagged and blocked.
Constant Changing of domains and IP addresses: Continuously changing of domains or IPs are likely to result in a blacklist. To prevent this, it’s advisable to use domains and IPs for long periods to build a good reputation.
Phishing: Mails designed to obtain sensitive information (such as credit card or bank details) are likely to be blocked even if they were done inadvertently.
Viruses: You should avoid sending mails and contents from unreliable, unscanned sources. If viruses or other harmful contents are discovered in your sent mails, your domain will be blacklisted or blocked.
Sudden traffic surge: A sudden surge in mail sending volume can raise suspicions and result in a blacklist.
Bad content: Some words or phrases in the mail content can give spam-like impressions and cause erroneous flagging of your domain and a blacklist.
Can Your Domain Be Blocked Even Though You Did Nothing Wrong?
It is possible that you did not connive with spammers, send phishing mails or spread computer viruses. Yet, you are here trying to find out how to delist Spamhaus DBL because your domain has been blocked.
Sadly, your domain can be blocked simply because you’ve not used it long enough to build a good reputation and not necessarily because you did anything wrong.
Another freakish reason you may be struggling with how to delist Spamhaus DBL right now is because of your failure to authenticate or confirm emails and email activity. Sending mails to bogus or invalid mails can lead to Spamhaus block.
Finally, How To Delist Spamhaus DBL
Now that we know what Spamhaus DBL is and how your domain name likely got on the list, we can now go ahead and find out how to delist Spamhaus DBL. The first thing you must do is to find out if your domain name is truly on the Spamhaus DBL. To do this, visit https://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/. You will see a textbox where you can enter either your domain name or IP address to find out if your domain name or IP address is on the list. If your domain name is on the list, obviously, the first thing you must do is stop sending any more mails. Then, you’ll need to review your recent activities and find out why your domain was blocked.
The next step you should take is to talk to your technical account manager. He is likely to take the following steps:
Review your infrastructure: Examine your domain policies. Ensure that the sources of your data and information are secure. Do not be in a hurry to send emails without proofreading them and passing them through other security measures. Host your domain on clean ISPs which do not allow spammers. If spammers share the same ISP as your domain, it can keep you on the blacklist.
Respond to negative responses: If you get complaints from recipient about unsolicited mails, remove them from your list. This can prevent your domain from being blocked.
Review your mailing list: Set up a system that helps to filter the mail addresses that can be added to your mail list. Confirm all mail addresses before adding them to your list or build a system that constantly review the eligibility of the mail addresses on your mailing list. This can prevent you from being blocked in future.
Remove inactive subscribers: Discover the mails that are inactive or bogus and remove them from your mailing list. This could have been the reason for your name being in the blacklist in the first place.
Follow the rules: Find out the rules for sending bulk messages in your country and follow them. Also, avoid illegal or quasi-illegal activities on your domain, and avoid affiliations – infrastructure or otherwise – that may compromise your domain’s name.
Now You Know How To Delist Spamhaus DBL, Does It Mean No More Blacklists?
The simple answer is ‘no’. Even though you know how to delist Spamhaus DBL, follow the rules and take absolute care in all the technical details, you could still be blacklisted. There are other blacklists run by Spamhaus as has been mentioned previously. And Spamhaus is just a company. There are other companies which help mailbox providers block mails for different reasons. Some block mails to ISPs of an entire sub region or country. You’ll surely have great difficulty sending bulk mails to North Korea. But on the bright side, Spamhaus is the biggest of them all, and if you can avoid being blocked by any of their services, then you have millions of people you can easily reach out to through mail.
Finally, Spamhaus reviews domains and delist domains all the time. If you did everything right, then you’re likely to be next to be delisted from the dreaded Spamhaus DBL.
Good Luck.
