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I am hitting a dead wall with the support team of my email hosting provider.

The IP they assigned me was blacklisted and so sending emails to AOL.co.uk end up getting rejected. After several emails back and forth, it has been de-listed from all blacklists.

The support staff is claiming that since I have Gmail automatic forwarders set on my email accounts with them, any spam received on these accounts, is automatically forwarded to my Gmail. To Gmail, it appears as if I am sending/forwarding the spam. Thus, my IP reputation is affected. But I am merely forwarding all emails received to my Gmail inbox so I can read/write email using Gmail's features.

I have two questions: 1) Could this really be an issue? And if so, 2) Surely most people have forwarders set this way and there is a lot of spam received and ultimately forwarded? What is the correct way to do this, so your IP reputation is not affected by mere forwarding.

dr_rk
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  • It sure sounds like this could be the issue. I don't see this as being common. I've never set this up or seen it in the wild. – Todd Wilcox Jun 30 '15 at 19:04
  • My provider provides SquirrelMail webmail which is quite basic and not as advanced as Gmail's user interface. So I suspect most of their customers would be setting forwarders. – dr_rk Jun 30 '15 at 21:50

1 Answers1

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This is more than likely the case.

Most providers have in effect a spam and virus filter, so before the original email is delivered it will be caught and discarded / not forwarded.

Is this an IP address dedicated to you? If not, others using the IP address (example case, shared hosting) may be contributing towards the negative reputation.

danmilleruk
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  • You make a good point. I don't currently have a spam filter in place, these are 'extra added services' with my provider. So I will be adding one soon. With regards to dedicated IP, I just confirmed that the IP I am assigned is a dedicated one. – dr_rk Jun 30 '15 at 21:47