spamrl.com is a nightmare :(

[KhanTastic]

Hi all,

I have a very small forum, only 1 user I have so far, I checked in my server and there is no spam going through my emails to anywhere but I noticed this is the second time spamrl.com has blocked my domain/ blacklist it.
Now, again I requested to safelist it

They keep blocking me, and apparently they directly won't unblock me. I have to go to their website, fill in the form to be unblock me, it works for a week, and then again I notice my emails are not going through because they blocked me agan.

Anyone else had to deal with them or had similar? As far as I'm aware I don't have any nasty traffic coming out of my connection as I said I have only 1 user on my forum, but I think because my domain contains chatgpt word maybe that could be reason? Do you think that can be the main cause? But I have seen tons of website they use this word in their domain, but I just hate that spamrl people, they do not even know who are spammers and who are real.

Thank you

 

[ENF]

Hi all,

I have a very small forum, only 1 user I have so far, I checked in my server and there is no spam going through my emails to anywhere but I noticed this is the second time spamrl.com has blocked my domain/ blacklist it.
Now, again I requested to safelist it

They keep blocking me, and apparently they directly won't unblock me. I have to go to their website, fill in the form to be unblock me, it works for a week, and then again I notice my emails are not going through because they blocked me agan.

Anyone else had to deal with them or had similar? As far as I'm aware I don't have any nasty traffic coming out of my connection as I said I have only 1 user on my forum, but I think because my domain contains chatgpt word maybe that could be reason? Do you think that can be the main cause? But I have seen tons of website they use this word in their domain, but I just hate that spamrl people, they do not even know who are spammers and who are real.

Thank you

Do you have a DMARC monitor setup on your domain? That would help monitor if someone is using your domain without you knowing.

DMARC Weekly Digests by Postmark

DMARC gives you full control of email delivery for your company’s domain. This is a free tool to monitor and implement DMARC.

dmarc.postmarkapp.com

This requires configuration of your DNS records.

How are you sending your emails? Via you own server, or other SMTP service?

 

[KhanTastic]

Do you have a DMARC monitor setup on your domain? That would help monitor if someone is using your domain without you knowing.

DMARC Weekly Digests by Postmark

DMARC gives you full control of email delivery for your company’s domain. This is a free tool to monitor and implement DMARC.

dmarc.postmarkapp.com

This requires configuration of your DNS records.

How are you sending your emails? Via you own server, or other SMTP service?

thanks your reply, no I do not have DMARC monitor setup for my domain, I am not sure if I have, I never heard of that.
I use my own hosting server and setup the SMTP for my XF forum to send emails.
I did ask my hosting company to check, and they confirmed to me there are not outgoing any spammy emails from my server.

 

[ENF]

thanks your reply, no I do not have DMARC monitor setup for my domain, I am not sure if I have, I never heard of that.
I use my own hosting server and setup the SMTP for my XF forum to send emails.
I did ask my hosting company to check, and they confirmed to me there are not outgoing any spammy emails from my server.

Running your own email is extremely challenging these days. It's not plug-n-play like it used to be. You need DMARC, SPF, DKIM -- all these configurations and just HOPE you won't get blacklisted. If use a dedicated SMTP service, you'll have an easier time getting mails delivered.

At a minimum, I'd setup the DMARC record and get the weekly report, that's all free. You'll want to follow-up with the sender policy framework (SPF) records that tells other mail handlers that your IP address (server) is authorized to make mail transactions for your domain. DKIM or DKIM signatures are used to detect forged sender addresses (a common tactic that spammers use). The DMARC report will catch reports from other mail servers that handle your mail.

All that aside, I'd highly suggest you look into a SMTP service that you can offload your mail sending function to. This would be things like Sendgrid, Amazon SES and others out there. It's discussed quite here on Xenforo.com already.

 

[KhanTastic]

Running your own email is extremely challenging these days. It's not plug-n-play like it used to be. You need DMARC, SPF, DKIM -- all these configurations and just HOPE you won't get blacklisted. If use a dedicated SMTP service, you'll have an easier time getting mails delivered.

At a minimum, I'd setup the DMARC record and get the weekly report, that's all free. You'll want to follow-up with the sender policy framework (SPF) records that tells other mail handlers that your IP address (server) is authorized to make mail transactions for your domain. DKIM or DKIM signatures are used to detect forged sender addresses (a common tactic that spammers use). The DMARC report will catch reports from other mail servers that handle your mail.

All that aside, I'd highly suggest you look into a SMTP service that you can offload your mail sending function to. This would be things like Sendgrid, Amazon SES and others out there. It's discussed quite here on Xenforo.com already.

Hi @ENF

Thanks so much for your prompt response! I really appreciate the time you took to address my concerns.

After reconsidering, I don't think I need Amazon SES at this point. With only one user on my forum, it seems unnecessary. However, I was experiencing issues with my domain being blocked by SpamURL. Despite multiple conversations with my hosting provider, the problem persisted. They mentioned that even Microsoft has been blacklisted in the past, so it's not uncommon.

Regarding DMARC, you were correct that I should double-check my configuration. Upon reviewing my settings, I realized that Xenforo also has DMARC settings under the SMTP area. I've now configured DMARC on both my server and Xenforo. The Xenforo settings mention that it may take around 24 hours to take effect.

I prefer using SMTP for sending emails, as it offers better reliability in many cases.
Something that recently caught me off guard is that companies like SpamURL, which blacklist our domains or emails, are actually on the receiver's side, not ours. I had assumed that these companies were affiliated with our hosting providers or servers. However, my hosting provider explained that these companies are independent and can block our domains if they receive complaints from users with email providers like SpamURL.

I'm still wrapping my head around this, but it's good to know. I've enabled DMARC on Xenforo and submitted a request to SpamURL to safelist my domain. Fingers crossed that they'll approve it and I won't experience any further issues.

It's just so frustrating when legitimate domains get blocked without reason. I'm confident that there were no spam emails sent from my domain, especially with only one user on my forum.

 

[ENF]

It's just so frustrating when legitimate domains get blocked without reason. I'm confident that there were no spam emails sent from my domain, especially with only one user on my forum.

It's not a simple matter, unfortunately. The easiest way to get blocked aside from sending spam is to not have you configuration exactly right. A lot of hosting services will just simply block the ability to send mails because of the rampant abuse where a spammer builds a server, dumps a bunch a spam and then deletes the server. That puts whatever IP address they had on blacklists which becomes the misfortune of the next person to use that IP address.

Even for large websites that deal with thousands of emails per day, it's a real challenge getting mails delivered. People get system emails and sometimes immediately click that "Spam" or "Junk" button which hurts the domain reputation. There are feedback loops out there that will alert you when this happens. Yahoo! actually has a fantastic feature that sends you a direct alert when someone reports your site emails as spam and it includes a copy of the message to see what was sent to the user who reported the spam.

Anyway, it's a rather tedious task to get it tuned just right.

 

[Opus X]

As far as I'm aware I don't have any nasty traffic coming out of my connection as I said I have only 1 user on my forum, but I think because my domain contains chatgpt word maybe that could be reason?

from what I was told when i was looking at shared hosting by a good friend of mine sending email using some shared hosting companies are a waste of time.
he said that many of them end up being used by spammers and the common ip address their mail comes from gets blocked.
he said in that case it does not really matter what your domain is because the ip itself is trash.

 

[MentaL]

Use amazon ses

 

[Chromaniac]

i know ses is the popular choice. but if your usage is very low and you need something simpler, i can suggest zeptomail from zoho. you basically buy a token that gets you 10,000 mails and it lasts for six months. so very suitable for smaller forums and there is no headache to pay monthly. and getting it up and running is much simpler than ses. the token costs around USD 2.50 (plus taxes?). they offer first token for free, so you are basically setup for six months or 10K mails. and they take care of authentication. as long as you are not sending out non transactional mails or spam, you shouldn't face any problems with outgoing mails.

 

[akok]

After setting up the DMARK + DKIM + SPF combination, all problems with sending mail disappeared. And in half a year, spammers stopped masking spam letters.

 

[briansol]

Run through these tests.

Learn and test SPF, DKIM and DMARC

Visualize, analyze and improve your email authentication setup

www.learndmarc.com

 

[akok]

This is the result we should strive for.

Spoiler

DMARC Results

--- Connection parameters ---
Source IP address: 0.0.0.0
Hostname: n/a
Sender: return+8d8ca62e+ld-b1ccacd34a=example1.com@example2.com

--- SPF ---
RFC5321.MailFrom domain: example2.com
Auth Result: PASS
DMARC Alignment: PASS

--- DKIM ---
Domain: example2.com
Selector: dkim
Algorithm: rsa-sha256 (1024-bit)
Auth Result: PASS
DMARC Alignment: PASS

--- DMARC ---
RFC5322.From domain: n/a
Policy (p=): quarantine
SPF: PASS
DKIM: PASS
DMARC Result: PASS

--- Final verdict ---
DMARC does not take any specific action regarding message delivery. Generally, this means that the message will be successfully delivered. However, it's important to note that other factors like spam filters can still reject or quarantine a message.

---------------------
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This free service is brought to you by URIports.com - DMARC Monitoring Reinvented.

 

[Chromaniac]

gmail also has a nice visual report for all emails. show original option in mail context menu.