Tips on Doing an IP Address Blacklist Check and Delisting

An IP address blacklist check is the checking of the blacklisting of your IP address. Blacklists (or blocklists) are lists of IP addresses that have been blocked. This is usually done for IP addresses that generate spam emails. Blacklisting happens once your IP address is reported to a spam fighting organization. Today's spam blockers have common blacklists incorporated in them.

IP addresses are unique locations of you or your website on the World Wide Web. IP addresses are either static or dynamic. A static/fixed IP address is easy to track. Most large organizations use static IP addresses. Dynamic IP addresses change every time you connect to the World Wide Web. Most Dynamic IP addresses are used for dial-up Internet access. They are popular with spammers because they are hard to track and they are 100% disposable. You could be placed in a temporary, a permanent, or a comprehensive blacklist. Temporary blacklists are blacklists where blacklisted emails are blocked for several hours. Permanent blacklists are blacklists where email servers that are configured to block emails from the blacklist never receive emails from the IP address again. A comprehensive blacklist is the most damaging of all blacklists. Not only will your IP address be blocked, the IP address next to yours will also be blocked. This means this blacklist is very damaging to those using virtual hosting.

There are several tips that will help you do an IP address blacklist check. You should do an IP address blacklist check on all blacklists to reduce the possibility of failing to know when you have been blacklisted. One of the most widely used blacklists where you should do an IP address blacklist check is SPAMHaus.org. The blacklist revolves around getting rid of UCE or unsolicited commercial email. UCEProtect is one of the few major SPAM blacklists where you can be blacklisted because of something you did not do (guilt by association). SORBS is based on hitting SPAM Honeypots or SPAMtraps and you have to request for removal. Others are URIBL, which uses 'SPAM honeypots' and which is similar to Spamhaus.org and Microsoft Frontbridge (an 88 blacklist zap, which is not a website). Consider doing the IP address blacklist check with a mail blacklist monitor. Most email blacklist monitors are free of charge and most check your IP address for blacklisting every 4 hours. You will get a notification once your IP address is recorded as spam. This is important in that you will then be able to take corrective action. There are several IP blacklist lookup tools that will show you the blacklist/s you are on.

One way of getting delisted from a blacklist is determining the cause of the blacklisting following a positive IP address blacklist check. You should then try to solve the root of the problem. Some blacklists will detect the change and remove you automatically, but you will have to apply for delisting from others. You could get delisted by appealing to the blacklist for removal after the IP address blacklist check. This has worked in cases where your account was hijacked by hackers or spammers or when you have shared a shared Web server with a hacker or a spammer unknowingly. You could hire a pro to do the IP address blacklist check, as well as carry out other network tasks such as DNS lookup.

Spam10 is the author of this article on MX Lookup. Find more information on DNS Lookup here.