How to remove your IP address from a blacklist?

Blacklisting your IP is a very rare scenario. There are several factors that can get your IP address from a blacklist database. If you’re stuck with a blacklisted IP, this article will help you fix it.

You can get out of an IP blacklist, but you can’t fully understand why you ended up there. You have to accept it.

If spammers knew how to escape a black list, the spam filter might as well not exist.

Why is an IP blacklisted?

One of the common blacklist databases we have seen is Spamhaus. They manage blacklisted databases of IP addresses and domains shared with several mailbox providers.

There are many other services and most have similar filter criteria as well as a few additional filters.

Here are some of the most common reasons why an IP address can end up in a blacklist database.

• Similar emails distributed through multiple IP addresses (also known as Spamming on snowshoes)
• Used a spam hosting service that allows all types of content on their servers
• An infected file was accidentally attached to a sent email
• Your sending server or domain is deemed compromised
• Sending emails to a purchased list or set of unsolicited emails
• Sending emails practiced listed as a spam operation in one of the filters in the blacklist database
• Etc.

This list is by no means exhaustive, and there are always new methods of spam filtering that appear as we progress to better understand spam. But it’s a starting point.

What can you do to get out of the IP blacklist?

If your IP address appears in one of the black lists after using the tool, you must first inform your email service provider. The simplest option for them would be to renew the IP of the server used for sending your emails.

But if you are on a dedicated IP or a self-hosted mail server, you need to take charge and follow the steps below.

1. Contact the provider of the IP blacklist

This is an important step. You must contact the blacklist provider and make a call to have your IP address removed from the blacklist. Depending on the reasons why your IP has been blacklisted, they may or may not approve your request.

If your call is accepted and your IP address removed from the list, you can immediately start sending emails with a few precautions to ensure better quality sending.

Anyway, this is a necessary step as it can avoid a lot of problems to manually delete the IP address.

2. Clean up your email lists

Common advice but easily missed. Most of us block cleaning tasks due to the nature of the task. It’s boring.

But when you are in an IP blacklist, cleaning the mailing list is the most important step that is under your control. Compared to step 1, you don’t have to wait for someone to help you out here.

How do you start by cleaning up your mailing list?

Start by making sure to separate email addresses that have not interacted with your last 5-6 email campaigns from those that have. You should have a very small list of people who actually open your emails.

What should you do with uncommitted email contacts?

Do not email them for a while. We need your IP Reputation to return to normal.

What emails can you send to improve your IP reputation?

The list of contacts who have contacted you accepts your emails better and spam filters have noticed this. So start sending very high quality emails to these lists of people.

3. Send relevant content

We now want this list of engaged users to devour your email upon arrival. Don’t sell anything. Simply send valuable content that will make your reader’s day much better.

As you start to send such emails, your IP reputation begins to improve.

What makes good content in an email?

A good e-mail contains these few elements:

• A great subject line
• Relevant email content
• Avoid spam content
• Click-worthy links or offers
• Relevant images and attachments

4. Maintain good consistency and dispatch practices

Take your time to connect with your audience again. Your emails may not be well received at first, but there is nothing to worry about. Consistency over a period of time will help you regain the lost reputation.

We have a lot of articles on how you can start with maintaining consistency and gaining traction when you want to start from scratch.

And after?

These are some of the general ideas that you can take into account. Since any IP address that goes into the IP blacklist for a specific reason, you need to further investigate the reasons why you have been blacklisted.

This can be done by understanding the filters of some of these blacklist providers and determining which of you could have triggered them, or by connecting with their blacklist centers.