IP Blacklist & Email Blacklist Check

Blacklist Check for IP Address, Domain, Email

Check the blacklisted status of an IP, domain, or email server IP.  Enter Domain/IP/Email address to check in the blacklist.

How to use the Blacklist check for Domain, IP, or Email Blacklist Check, or how to perform the IP blacklist lookup?

Several online tools and websites are free, and check that the domain, IP address, or email server IP is consequently listed with DNSBL or SURBL systems. Check your IP status or perform the IP blacklist lookup.

• Open the IP Blacklist & Email Blacklist Check Tool.
• Enter the domain, your IP address or any target IP, or email server IP address (through MX lookup) whose status you want to check.
• Click on the "Check in Blacklists" button.
• The tool will take 20 to 40 seconds to perform the blacklist check and provide the results.
• If your IP, domain, or email is listed in the particular blacklist, it will show "Yes" in front of that blacklist or vice-versa.

Note: We do not manage, run, or have any direct affiliation with any blacklist. We only provide a single platform to check a domain, IP, or email server IP address's status on third-party blacklists. We do not recommend using any specific blacklist or condone blacklists that require payment for removal. Including such blacklists is for completeness and should not support that blacklist's usage.

What does blacklist mean (regarding IP, domain, and email)?

The Blacklist check tool checks whether the domain, IP address, or email server's IP is listed with DNSBL. Email system providers utilize that database to filter out spam emails before reaching the end users.

For example, if your company uses email marketing and sends thousands of emails to promote a new product, some receivers mark that email as spam. There is a high chance that your IP will be on the IP blacklist, which needs to be avoided.

IP address blacklisting is the process or method to filter out or block illegitimate or malicious IP addresses from accessing your network. It occurs when a web hosting company ultimately ignores your IP address. More precisely, any email you try to send is consequently blocked and filtered as spam.

One estimate concludes that email traffic consists of 80% of spam emails. That overwhelming amount of commercial emails leads to strict blacklisting practices to keep the inboxes spam-free. So one must check email for blacklist.

What is a DNSBL?

DNSBL is the first line of defense. DNSBL stands for Domain Name System Blacklist, the domain blacklist check that allows the administrator to block the messages from specific IPs with a history of sending spam messages. The list is based on Internet's Domain Name System, which converts the IP address into the domain name, and makes it much easier to understand.

Suppose a maintainer of a blacklist in the past has received any spam from a specific domain. It would include that domain’s IP in its blacklist. All the messages sent from that particular server would either be rejected/flagged by all the websites that use that blacklist to avoid spam.

There are dozens of DNSBLs available online for domain blacklist checks—each with its own rules and offensive categories to focus on. The most common nasty type is spam, but some blacklists focus more on hacking, malware, botnets, etc. The email administrators use these DNSBLs to check whether the incoming email is generated or originated from the blacklisted IP address.

What is SURBL?

SURBL is a list of websites that have appeared in unsolicited messages. It is the second line of defense, but not all spam filters can use it.

With time the spammers become pretty intelligent, and there is no proper way to catch every spam message. The email administrators use the SURBLs to scan the email messages' body text to extract any website address present and check it against the blacklists. If any address is found, the message will be treated as spam or handled accordingly per the instructions.

Note: Interestingly, the websites in unsolicited messages are more consistently used than the rapidly changing botnet IP addresses used to send most of them. If you are from an email marketing company, running an email advertisement, or from an email system administrator and your email server IP has been blacklisted, you must work with various DNSBLs and SURBLs to delist your IP address.

How an IP blacklist integrates with an Email service?

The process is simple.

• Suppose you send an email from [email protected] to some user Mike.
• Mike's mail server will determine and resolve the sender's IP address into the domain name.
• Mike's mail server checks the domain and the sender's IP address in the IP/domain blacklist database.
• If the IP or domain is blacklisted, your email will most likely land in Mike's spam/junk mail folder without the message being scanned.
• If the IP or domain is already in the repetitive spam sender list, the ISP's spam filters will reject its message, meaning it won't even reach Mike's spam folder.

Why is my IP address blacklisted?

A blacklist is a database of IP addresses believed to send spam. Emails from these IP addresses are either blocked or routed to the recipient's spam folder or handled accordingly.

Your IP may be in a single blacklist or multiple backlists. There is no centralized authority for that. Each blacklist is managed independently, and each has criteria for listing or delisting the IP address in its blacklist.

There are several reasons that your IP is on the blacklist.

1. The main reasons for IP blacklisting are the virus, malware, and sending many spam emails.
2. If you run a mail server that is not configured correctly, which results in sending spam, or you intentionally send spam, your IP address becomes blacklisted.
3. Maybe you tried to purchase the email lists from a third party containing many incorrect or spam email addresses.
4. The majority of email receivers mark your email as spam.
5. Someone hacked your email account and used it for spammy activities.
6. There is also a scenario in which your IP is on the blacklist, even if you did not do anything wrong. That frequently happens when having a DHCP IP address. Most blacklist maintainers automatically add the IP address assigned via DHCP by ISP. Even though you are not a spammer, maybe the person who had your IP address before you used it for spamming activity. Only your ISP knows who had that IP address before assigning it to you. You can perform the IP WHOIS to learn about IP usage details.
7. Your website can even be listed on a search engine's blacklist; no legitimate website wants this. Several reasons can play a role in this regard.

• If your website is spammy, or maybe, you are getting backlinks from spammy websites. Use an external link checker to perform your website’s link audit.
• Your website is suspected of being used for hacking purposes.
• Once the website is added to the search engine's blacklist, it will vanish from the internet.

How do you get off the blacklist, or what do if my IP is blacklisted?

1. To get off the blacklist or to clear your name from being blacklisted, first, you must check that your system is clean from any viruses or malware and that no unauthorized traffic is going out. Find out where your IP is blacklisted and contact them.
2. Investigate why they entered your IP address in their blacklist. The majority of the blacklist provides general listing reasons. You must check each of them.
3. The majority of the blacklist allows you to submit the removal request. Each blacklist has a different way of raising the removal request.
4. Submitting the removal request is an attempt from your end. It does not mean that the Blacklist maintainer will honor your request.

What if my IP address remains on a blacklist?

The most common reason my IP address keeps getting blacklisted is that my IP address has been reported and consequently blacklisted for sending spam emails. If I am a home user, having my IP address on the blacklist would not make much difference. Otherwise, I must delist my IP address if I run a business or have a mail server. My system should be clean from viruses or malware, or my mail server must be configured correctly and pass the SMTP test through the SMTP tester.

Would you be interested in more DNS tools on DNS Checker? Why do not you try our WHOIS IPv6, Email Header Analyzer Online, and Ping IP Address? All the IP tools are top-notch and free!