First, relax. Being blacklisted doesn't always lead to a bad deliverability.

First, it's not because your domain is blacklisted that you will land in spam.

Let us explain you why.

The major inbox providers are Google (Gmail / Google Workspace) and Microsoft (Outlook / Office 365).

Google mostly uses its own rules and own internal blacklists to decide if you will land in spam, inbox or categories. In other words, they mostly don't care of the blacklists. They care more about how its users react to your emails.

Microsoft uses its own (weird sometimes) rules but takes some blacklists into account to decide where you will land. They care more about blacklists than Google. Keep in mind that deliverability towards Microsoft inboxes is always trickier.

That means that most of the time, if your domain is blacklisted, it's more likely to have a negative impact towards Microsoft inboxes.

But it can also have zero impact on your deliverability.

Check your main MailReach graph : Where your warming emails land. That's the best indicator of your sending reputation.

If your warming emails land mostly in inbox : it means the blacklists don't have any impact on your reputation and deliverability. Good news.

If your warming emails land mostly in spam, it can be caused by the blacklist(s), or not. It can also be caused of a bad sending reputation. That's difficult to know precisely if a blacklist has a negative impact on your reputation / deliverability because there are many other factors (your previous activity for example).

In all cases, we recommend you to filter your MailReach dashboard by provider to find out if the spam is focused on Google, Microsoft, or both.

To do that :

In MailReach > Email Warmer > Find the email account and click on Show.
On the right, there's a dropdown menu : Provider: All
Select Gmail / G Workspace and check where your warming emails land.
Select Outlook / Office 365 / Hotmail and check where your warming emails land.

Why have I been blacklisted?

The main causes of being blacklisted are :

Your hosting provider. For example, UCEPROTECT blacklists ranges of IP based on your hosting provider. That's the case of Namecheap for example.
Spam traps in your mailing list
Malwares on your website
Etc

Blacklists have their own rules and criteria. There are tons of blacklists, but the most known are SPAMHAUS, UCEPROTECT, SORBS, ...

What to do about the blacklist(s)?

If there's no impact on your Where your warming emails land graph, there's nothing to worry about. Your emails land in inbox and that's the most important.

Warning : it's not because your warming emails land mostly in inbox that your own emails, which are different than MailReach's and sent differently will land in inbox. This is why you need to use our Spam Checker. We have a dedicated guide on that : Why I am still landing in spam while I have a high sender score on MailReach and how to fix it?

If you think there might be a negative impact on your deliverability / reputation, you can reach out directly to the blacklists owners / admins.

MailReach can't remove you from blacklists, we don't have this power. You will have to manage that by yourself.

But again, the main indicator is to have your emails landing in inbox.

If your warming emails are mostly landing in spam because of a damaged email reputation, follow our dedicated guide.

We have written a very effective guide to help you restore the sending reputation of a domain that has been used in the past. It's for domains with history, not for new domains.

Here it is : How to restore a damaged email reputation and deliverability using MailReach

Updated on: 27/04/2022