The issue of hosting email accounts for companies is the most frequent cause of profanity and outbursts of anger among the public at large. Clearly, the ability to send and receive email is a crucial component of any hosting service, particularly for those who use it to do business. Sadly, as these businesses flocked to service providers, so did Spammers, Scammers, and other evildoers.
Most likely, you've already removed hundreds of them, but if you're curious about what they're up to, just visit your Junk mail folder (everything from fake pharma, lottery scams, etc.). As companies rushed to host their emails, web hosting became a prevalent word at the same time that spammers emerged from hiding to begin their destruction efforts. To remain competitive and attract as much business as possible, several of the bigger firms began providing web hosting packages that included email hosting for cents on the dollar, or sometimes for free. This was great news for the "bad guys," sometimes known as Spammers.
Using many accounts of this kind, people interested in sending spam or unwanted emails might do so fast and with no risk, since some hosting firms offer a one-month subscription for $0.01. This setup requires simply a few Visa gift cards (capable of handling the first $0.01 charge), a VPN, and a few hours of work.
As the business grew inundated with "bad guys," the good guys began to fight back with tougher mail restrictions, improved fraud checks, and a severe restriction on the quantity of outgoing emails that may be sent per shared hosting account.
To circumvent this, many "bad people" began hacking WordPress. It just takes ONE old plugin, theme, or WordPress installation for a website to be hacked and provide the "bad guys" with access to send Spam emails.
IPs And Black Listing
When "bad emails" begin to be sent, the IP address of the server starts to be added to blacklists by Internet Service Providers, often known as RBLs (Real-time Blackhole List). Some blacklists are made public (so hosting businesses can check the IP is clean), but those for Microsoft, AT&T, and other significant corporations are not.
Consequently, you will often not know whether there is an issue with an IP address until there is a problem. In other words, any email sent from a server with a "bad" IP will be returned by the firm that has it on its blacklist (or RBL). For instance, if Microsoft has an IP on their RBL, any email sent to @live.com, @hotmail.com, or @outlook.com would be returned with the error message that the sender has a bad reputation.
To resolve the issue, the site host must scan the server, determine who is sending spam, and submit a request to be de-listed. Unfortunately, huge corporations such as AT&T do not prioritise these concerns, thus it might take up to a week to be resolved.
Benefit Of Ordering A Dedicated IP Address
Given this information, one of the best ways to ensure the maximum deliverability rate is to get a dedicated IP address along with your hosting subscription. Thus, only your company will use that IP, and any abuse will originate straight from your account. This makes it simple to trace and far simpler to clean up.
Due to the random assignment of IP addresses, it is quite probable that the IP was already used by another server. As previously noted, if the IP is on an RBL that is not public, you won't realise there is an issue until your emails begin to bounce. While this often solves the issue, it is not always ideal.
Third Party Email Providers
Using a third-party email service is one of the most effective methods for eradicating the issue entirely. Having a third-party solution such as Google Apps if your organisation depends only on email is an EXTREMELY wise move. ISPs will not put Google's IP addresses on a blacklist due to the company's prominence in the sector (or RBL). If there is impending abuse, they are fast to discover and stop it.
Integrating Google Apps is identical to utilising Gmail, except that you may use your own @DomainName.com address. For about the first five years of Google Apps, they provided this service for free. New accounts must pay $5 per month per user, however old accounts are grandfathered in.
What We Use
If your email is important to your company, We hope you'll implement one of my recommendations. This is a really annoying aspect of the hosting market, and that will soon change.
By releasing and disseminating this information, it will provide our consumers (present and prospective) a better understanding of how this works and how these events are sometimes beyond our control.
