Are you sure that your domain isn’t currently listed with some anti SPAM-database? We recommend you to check this out!  As you can be one of those who accidentally fall into being blocked due to spreading spam, malware, viruses or just having dangerous, illegal or prohibited content (links to such content) hosted on their pages. Apparently, anyone can be blacklisted – so what can you do? How can you detect such problem? Are there any protection mechanisms? This is what this article is about.

Why is this happening?

There are tens of thousands of different DNSBL-servers up for grabs out there and they all have their own set standards and criteria for which IP should be blacklisted. Moreover, these conditions are constantly changing. Therefore, there’s no guarantee that even a law-abiding domain which meets all standards of copyright and trademark laws, the laws of privacy and publicity, and other applicable regulations and statutes of law, one day wouldn’t be filtered out by the search engine as one that spreads spam.

Actually, HostTracker’s team recently faced the risk of being banned too. HostTracker, in its capacity as a website monitoring service, sends daily many various reports to the people that requesting them, hence it was easy to determine that some of our emails hadn’t been delivered and were dumped into a spam folder.

So what should you do?

Understanding the problem is the first step to fixing it. So it’s crucial to be aware of the warning signs of listing threat and be able to quickly take steps to cut back if you recognize them. Since we recommend adopting our new feature - "DNSBL" on the "Check site instantly" bar - we have implemented just for you:

This option is not exactly brand new, as there are dozens of different check services out there (for instance, Mxtoolbox), which offer a convenient help in testing whether your domain is on some blacklists. But soon we realized that we also needed to arm HostTracker with this check, as without having had such tool in place, we were flying blind.

In light of what was written above, we provide the illustration of how the "DNSBL" check works:

If HostTracker detects some suspicious activity from your IP address, you’ll be notified immediately with an alert of a possible listing reason. For you it means - the ability to track the reason why the site was blocked to its origins.

Usually, the domain will be blocked not at once but only after a thorough analysis of many factors. If you have already discovered your IP on one or more blacklists, don’t panic, more often than not, all you need to do is to follow their specific removal process. That implies, you should visit the corresponding blacklist's website and, following the removal instructions, enter the domain name and press "Delist". Additionally, you may need to contact the blacklist with a removal request. Note that, previously you have to resolve all issues that caused the blacklist.

So, if you happen to discover your IP address involved in spamming – resolve the underlying issues and you’ll be removed automatically, once a certain period of time elapses. How to stay protected and off of blacklists? The best option is to use PTR or SPF for messaging, as this’ll eliminate the likelihood of your domain name getting fraudulently spoofed and abused by spammers, or blocked for appearing to use a dynamic IP address.

There's no single cause of being blacklisted. Generally speaking, if your IP has been tagged illegal accidentally, the removal process won’t take much time and effort. But it is essential to be proactive, so that to be able to act fast and be in tune with such situations. The sooner you find out about the issues, the easier they are to deal with and the more likely that your domain name won’t be deemed illegal among the entire set of DNSBL databases. Use our new option "DNSBL" on the "Check site instantly" bar to be always aware of the "status" of your resource and never be tossed and turned by the tides of website hassles and outages. Remember, we’re looking forward to any interesting comments and suggestions regarding our service and its work.