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checking to see if email/domain is on black list (email going in spam folder)

Hi I have a company that sends emails from Quickbooks Desktop, most of the times, the email's go to recipient's spam folder, or junk.  They are using Microsoft Exchange Online/365.


Question, is there a way to find out if their domain is black listed anywhere?  Or their IP address?


Thanks all.

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tharindu pasan meewala
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Yes, there are several ways to check if a domain or IP address is blacklisted.

  1. Check with blacklists: You can check with various blacklists like Spamhaus, BarracudaCentral, and others to see if your domain or IP address is blacklisted. You can check your domain or IP address on their websites or use online tools like MX Toolbox, which checks multiple blacklists at once.

  2. Check with your email service provider: You can check with your email service provider, in this case, Microsoft Exchange Online/365, to see if they have any information on why your emails are going to spam. They may have tools or recommendations to help improve email deliverability.

  3. Check email headers: You can also check the email headers of your sent emails to see if they are being flagged by spam filters. Look for any keywords or phrases that may be triggering spam filters.

  4. Check email content: Make sure the content of your emails is not too promotional or spammy. Avoid using all caps or too many exclamation marks. Ensure that your emails have a clear purpose and are relevant to the recipient.

  5. Use a reputable email deliverability service: There are various email deliverability services available that can help improve your email deliverability, such as SendGrid, Mailgun, and others. They can help you identify any issues with your emails and provide recommendations to improve deliverability.

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IMHO, the best "composite" listing of the "free" (open) RBLs is valli.org (url: https://multirbl.valli.org/)
You will want to put the IP address in first (most RBLs are IP address based), but also put the domain name(s) in there as well.

There is no aggregation that I know of of the "private" RBLs (microsoft's, Google's, Apple's, Barracuda's, etc.) - for those, you generally have to wait to get a message bounced before you know you're on their list.

HOWEVER, your question also relates to "mail going into SPAM folder" - and that is a totally different issue!

RBLs block mail delivery... putting something into SPAM is a separate function entirely, and comes AFTER the mail has been delivered. There is precious little you can do to affect that....
I had a client (insurance company) who wound up on Google's "junk" list.... and their company email was  HOSTED by Google! To fix it, we had employees send emails to themselves - at their own gmail.com addresses, and every time it went into Junk (Google's version of SPAM), mark it as "not junk"! It took a few days, but with enough "not junk"s reported, they got off the Google Junk List... (To my knowledge, there is no external method of getting off of Google's Junk list - you have to "earn" your way off of it!)

Good Luck!
I would second the comment to Check email headers.  You'll need access to the original email from the junk folder, not a forward of it.  You can also analyze the header if the email from the junk folder is sent back to you as an attachment.

This is Microsoft's analyzer: https://mha.azurewebsites.net/

It's important to identify what was the cause if you are going to try to fix it.  If it is a problem with SPF or DKIM then you should be able to fix it on your end.  If it is something such as a Bayes filter (analyzes probability of being spam based on many factors), there is little you can do about it other than to change your content.
Dan,
As CompProbSolv stated- Are your SPF, DMarc, and DKIM settings even in place on your outside DNS?
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ASKER

Tharindo - Ill try that

Daniel, I try that site, I like the one stop thing.  I kinda figured that was the case with the spam....

Comp, thanks, not sure what DKIM is, but Ill try the azure link

Dan I really have no idea, ill have to check.
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ASKER

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Hi, I ran the domain and it came ok, then I checked the IP and got this, could this be it?
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Daniel McAllister
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ASKER

Wow Daniel thanks a ton, so how do I find the ip address of my exchange server?
Keep in mind that blacklisting may not be the issue at all.  I lean heavily when troubleshooting to try to identify the details of the problem before trying to fix it.  The high-level problem is that your emails are going to junk.  The low-level problem may be blacklisting, but it may be the other things that have been mentioned (SPF, DKIM, etc.) or something else.  Checking the header on a email in junk on someone's system should give you a much better clue about what the underlying problem really is.

Are multiple recipients seeing this problem?  Do you find anything similar between the recipients, such as the host that they use?
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ASKER

Thanks all, it seemed to go away, but i learned allot, thanks a ton.
Did you ever check the header of an email that went to junk or spam?  If not, nothing was learned about this particular case.  If the problem resurfaces (as it may well do), you have to start from scratch again.