17 December 2019

email four leafPhoto credit: Neil Rhodes

With increasing frequency it happens that users ask us for support because the emails sent by them are incorrectly classified as spam by the recipient server ... and that eventually it emerges that the problem is not in the email service, but in the IP provided by their provider of connectivity.

 

Why does this happen?

When sending an email message, the sender has two IPs involved:

  • the IP of his email server
  • the IP of the PC (or Smartphone) used for sending, and assigned to the same by the connectivity provider (ADSL or 4G)

The "reputation" of the IP of the email server is the responsibility of the provider (and therefore ours): when it happens on our shared email servers that an IP ends up in blacklist, we intervene immediately both to eliminate the problem that generated the blacklisting, and to request and obtain the delisting of the same.

But the sender's IP reputation is the responsibility of the connectivity provider (Telecom, Vodafone, etc.), and this is the user should - in theory - contact to request the delisting of the IP, or the assignment of a "clean" IP.

 

How to find out if your connectivity IP is blacklisted?

Visit https://whatismyipaddress.com/, which will clearly show you what your current IP (IPv4) connectivity is.

Take note of it, go to the https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx page, enter your just discovered IP number and click on "Blacklist check"

The system will monitor a hundred public blacklists, reporting all those that involve your IP.

 

How to fix?

In theory, you should contact your connectivity provider to ask for IP delisting or provide a "clean" one.

Indeed a frustrating undertaking that will hardly lead to any results in a short time ...

If you (like most ADSL users) only have a dynamic IP, you can use a trick: turn off your router, wait a few seconds, and then turn it back on. By doing so, it is possible that your router is assigned a different IP (and, hopefully, "clean").

Otherwise, the last solution is to activate a VPN service, which will then make you appear to the rest of the world with a different IP than the one you use to connect.

 





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