Mail marked as spam Microsoft & Google

Hi, I almost have my box running, but my mails are marked as Spam when are sent to Google or Microsoft. Note that the ip is not baklisted (only in 5 places out of 260). but i don’t know what to do

DNS have been configured as miab said.
DNSSEC hasn’t been enabled by now, is it neccesary?

Someone could help me?, please

If you are saying that you are checking your domain or IP address on a blacklist checker and “only” showing up on 5 places, that means you are showing up on 5 places too many - the number should be zero places.

Also check /var/log/mail.log to see if Microsoft is leaving any nastygrams when you send mail to them, and be sure to look at the headers in the received mail (e.g., view original, raw message, etc.).

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Hi Openletter

And how could I remove my ip from those lists? or Should i generate new IPs until i get a good one?

Also, how could i check /var/log/mail.log? with file explorer or looking on the server with the terminal?

Thanks for your time, I am a little bit noob yet

The page that reports the blocklist status will have a link to the blocklist webpage. The blocklist webpage will have instructions on how to remove your IP address from the blocklist.

I don’t know what page or tool you are checking your status with, but I recommend to also check https://dnsbl.info. There are a few lists on that one that are not on others.

You can check /var/log/mail.log in terminal using a text editor such as nano. You will need to know the time you sent the email to find it in the logs. Also, you could send the email, wait maybe 10 seconds, then use tail /var/log/mail.log to display the last 10 lines of the log file (tail -n 20 /var/log/mail.log to see the last 20 lines, etc.). The transaction should be logged there. You could also use grep username@example.com /var/log/mail.log where the email address is the address you are sending to (note you sometimes need to see lines the to: email address does not appear on).

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abandon your server and re-create a new VPS until you get a clean IP, since you just started.

With regards to Gmail and Microsoft being sent to spam…

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Hi daveteu.I have created my VPS with Digital Ocean, and i’ve been triying to get a clean Ip, but seems to ve almost impossible. Do i have to try it hundreds of times?
And, could i improve reputation just by sending emails? or it’s compulsory having a clean IP?
Also, i’ve been looking at Uceprotect in order to delist my IP from the bloacklist, but seems to be almost impossible.

To sum up, would i need to have a clean ip compulsory? building some reputation is neccesary? and is it realist triying to delist an IP?

As mentioned by @openletter

If you are saying that you are checking your domain or IP address on a blacklist checker and “only” showing up on 5 places, that means you are showing up on 5 places too many

You are starting your box new, and you have this one chance to get things right.

It’s not difficult to difficult at all to find a clean IP at DigitalOcean. Create 10 droplets, check all the IP and find one which is clean, then delete the other 9. 6/10 of the droplets while I’m spinning up while writing this reply are clean IPs.

We are just advising you base on what we experience, it’s up to you whether you want to go through the trouble of finding a clean IP, or building the rep.

You decide whether it’s necessary, and whether to get your mails into your mailbox or junkmail.

There’s no easy way out.

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I’m gonna’ just mention that using Vultr for several years now and the only blacklist an IP address was ever on was one that tracks IP addresses that have never sent an email (didn’t even know such a list existed!).

Here is the first article I ever read about DO and IP address problems and it was published in 2014:

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Google and Hotmail (Microsoft) are very stringent on DMARC and PTR records as well as SPF and DKIM.
Also, be sure to sign up for the Microsoft JMPP to whitelist your IP and sending domain.


Finally, check your email headers and verify that the domain and server hostname match your expected settings.
Get this set up correctly and mailinabox email sails straight through to the inbox.
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That is all useful, but note that if your IP address is on a blacklist is likely won’t make a lick of difference.

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Hi

Ok, i see it as necessary

Please, could you tell me what datacenter of DO are you testing? because by now, all what i have tested have banned ip

Thanks!

you try again, you may see some IPs only black listed by UCEPROTECT, which you can conveniently ignore.

There are many many email blacklists; however, there are only a few that are widely used and UCEPROTECT is not one of them.

This blacklist service usually block entire IP range, then make you pay $$ to white list it at whitelisted.org. My IP block got on the list a while ago but I haven’t seen it affecting my mails. Mails to gmail and outlook/hotmail definitely not affected (likely they don’t care about this blacklist).

From trend micro

Trend Micro is actively looking into reported issues where UCEPROTECT is blocklisting IP addresses that Trend Micro uses for sending out email messages on behalf of our customers. UCEPROTECT claims that this is an anti-spam measure and publicly suggests our customers change service provider if the issue is not resolved quickly.

Currently these blocking issues cannot be resolved permanently by Trend Micro because of the following reasons:

· The criteria for customer IP’s being placed on UCEPROTECT block lists are not publicly available and appear to be overly aggressive in nature (entire IP ranges can be blocked based on a single ‘suspicious’ IP).

· UCEPROTECT refuses to interact with vendors (including Trend Micro) to help assist in understanding the criteria behind the blocking whereas other more reputable blocklists will engage with customers so that customers can proactively correct behaviour.

· Unlike other reputable blocklists UCEPROTECT also charges a fee for delisting which Trend Micro recommends our customers NOT to pay. Paying the fee will not prevent UCEPROTECT from again blocking the same IP in 1 day, 1 week etc. leading to further blocklisting and payment requests in the future.

As always, Trend Micro takes necessary measures to avoid having our IPs identified as a spam source. At the same time, we are advising our customers and their email recipients to avoid using UCEPROTECT’s blocklist.

From ProofPoint (They manages email spam control for iCloud / Apple)

Proofpoint’s Official Position

UCEProtect and Backscatterer.org are owned by the same organization. UCEProtect and Backscatterer will list IPs that send spam and/or send backscatter (misdirected bounces). Both of these blocklists are considered extreme in that their listing policies are aggressive enough that we typically see very little actual impact to email flow.

UCEProtect is a public DNSBL that lists IPs that send spam to their spam traps. UCEProtect also charges a delisting fee which Proofpoint will not pay and does not recommend paying for list removal.

Backscatterer.org lists IPs that send backscatter spam (misdirected bounces). Backscatterer.org also charges a delisting fee which Proofpoint will not pay and does not recommend paying for delisting. Additionally, in our experience, we typically see very little actual impact to email flow due to Backsatterer.org’s aggressive listing policies.

Proofpoint will not pay and does not recommend paying for list removal.

What I’m trying to say is… this hooligan blacklist is not that important to let me spend time moving my box since any network can be blocked by them just so they can make money.

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Oh, that looks much different then.

Thanks a lot!, Now i only need to build some reputation

Hi, i have checked the SPF, DKIM and DMARC and there are OK, also my IP is now clean, but im am still being marked as spam.

I used itsnotspam.com and i got this results:


SpamAssassin check details:

SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28)

Result: ham (non-spam) (03.6points, 10.0 required)

pts rule name description


  • 3.5 BAYES_99 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99 to 100%
  • [score: 1.0000]
  • -0.0 SPF_HELO_PASS SPF: HELO matches SPF record
  • -0.0 SPF_PASS SPF: sender matches SPF record
  • -0.0 RP_MATCHES_RCVD Envelope sender domain matches handover relay domain
  • 0.2 BAYES_999 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99.9 to 100%
  • [score: 1.0000]
  • -0.1 DKIM_VALID_AU Message has a valid DKIM or DK signature from author’s
  • domain
  • 0.1 DKIM_SIGNED Message has a DKIM or DK signature, not necessarily
  • valid
  • -0.1 DKIM_VALID Message has at least one valid DKIM or DK signature
    X-Spam-Status: Yes, hits=3.6 required=-20.0 tests=BAYES_99,BAYES_999,
    DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,RP_MATCHES_RCVD,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS
    autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0
    X-Spam-Score: 3.6

What on earth is hapenning now to be marked as spam?, everything seems to be ok

By the way, i didn’t used trigger words. If you put hello or a news article, it’s marked as spam anyway

If you have ipv6 make sure your records are setup for this - google/gmail will block if this is not in place.

Sadly this is the slow demise of the last truly federated system, large vendors don’t care as the majority are sending between them now. And no one would survive blocking them, even though they constitute a high amount of outgoing spam traffic.

Yes, IPV6 is ok

Only happens on Google and Hotmail/Outlook

GMAIL - nothing you can do about it by just continuing to send mail and mark it as not spam.

Hotmail/outlook you should have received a mail telling you that your mail is rejected and the instructions to unblock it. If it’s marked as spam, then continue send legitimate email until you are no longer in spam.

Bayes spam probability is 99 to 100%

When dealing with spam the theorem is used to calculate a probability whether a certain message is spam based on words in the title and message, learning from messages that were identified as spam and messages that were identified as not being spam (sometimes called ham).

You look at all the SPF DMARC records are properly set up, then it’s your content problem.

Good Read

PS: getting out of the spam folder is not something that happens overnight.

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