We got on a spam blacklist

[Steven Benner]

I've had a couple reports of mails not going through or going into the junk folder. I've checked out our mail logs and found that we did get on a blacklist, CBL to be exact. We got on their list on 2009-09-21 at 09:00 GMT. I am not sure how we got listed there but we are not listed on any other spam blacklists.

I have already filled out the removal request form and our site should be dropped from the list in an hour or two. Until then, there are several ISPs that are completely blocking us.

Affected email service providers:

• mail.yahoo.com
• mail.rr.com
• charter.net
• ixwebhosting.com
• untd.com

Anyone at any of these mails services have not been able to receive email from the forums since we got listed.

I suspect that this happened because this server just showed up one day and started mailing. With no mailing history then to start directly sending 20+ emails a day to all different email providers is suspicious. This is only a guess.

I'll keep an eye on our mail logs to see if we get listed again. Hopefully we will not, but if it happens again I may have to look into another mailing solution.

[Steven Benner]

This should be resolved now. I'm not seeing anymore unusual bounces or block notices.

[Steven Benner]

We're blocked on verizon. I think they are complaining because we don't have SPF records. I'm working on this. Until I get it resolved no one @ verizon.net can receive forum emails.

This one is going to be a bit more difficult.

[ozzie]

Verizon email sucks anyways, just tell 'em to get gmail instead It doesn't really surprise me to find out their spam filters are blocking site emails, about half the time my legit emails would end up in the spam box with them, and most of the spam would get through.

[a2ndopinion]

I use Verizon, and have been receiving E-mails on a regular basis, including tonight.

[Steven Benner]

I use Verizon, and have been receiving E-mails on a regular basis, including tonight.

Well, it looks like you're right. They've started accepting emails from the server again. I didn't fix it, and I'm not sure what happened. I was planning to go through a complicated reworking of the mail server software configuration. But I hadn't started it yet.

Oh well. Let's hope it stays this way. 

[danf]

We're blocked on verizon. I think they are complaining because we don't have SPF records. I'm working on this. Until I get it resolved no one @ verizon.net can receive forum emails.

This one is going to be a bit more difficult.

Some domain name providers allow you to set this in their domain configuration tools. GoDaddy is one of them. I believe if you go under DNS control you can see the option for adding a SPF record.

Ironically, hotmail will sometimes reject stuff from servers that don't have a SPF record.