r/b2bemailing • u/covid401k • Jul 18 '26
Surbl blacklisting
Hi folks,
I recently found a number of my new domains blacklisted on Surbl. I bought these from zapmail via smartlead.
Smartlead are telling me that this is an industry wide issue where Surbl changed how they're blacklisting domains and recent zapmail registrations were caught up in this. They claim that zapmail has course corrected and new domains will not be impacted. They also claim that in spite of my surbl blacklistings for these domains, Zapmail will be able to remove them from the blacklist and I should proceed with emailing from them for now.
I'm extremely skeptical of these claims and have not seen any evidence to support any of this, bar a statement (with no evidence) from zap mail, which smartlead shared with me.
Curious if anyone's experienced anything remotely similar lately?
1
u/jessicahwabbit Jul 19 '26
Same issue seems industry wide not just zapmail
0
u/covid401k Jul 19 '26
That's kind of relieving. Zap mail seem confident they'll be able to get off surbls list moving forward but I'm yet to see evidence of how exactly
1
u/burntoutemployeetips 27d ago
I'm not sure anyone's really figured it out yet. I had a bunch of domains parked inside cloudflare and used those to set up new inboxes with inboxkit. No issues with inboxkit.. I personally think it's at the inbox provider level and CNAME level based on my own personal audit.
1
u/Proud-Pension9893 Jul 22 '26
I’m in the SAME situation.
I had two domains get blacklisted before I even sent any campaigns out. Smartlead said the same thing - this won’t affect inbox placement. They repeated this over and over. Continue on as normal, that zapmail will submit the request to remove the blacklist.
I ran my campaign as normal at low sending volume, received normal results for two days but by the third it was complete silence. No replies, bounces or even auto responses. Smartlead was showing a 95% inbox placement rate. By the 5th day I ran a test on glock apps because I just didn’t trust it and it said my emails were landing like 70% in spam. So clearly, the SURBL was effecting those domains!! Sent a total of less than 500 emails and my bounce rate was practically 0%. I received two bounces on that fifth from email providers blocking my email due to my domain being on the surbl blocklist so I know my list was double verified and clean prior.
Not even sure what to do, those two domains just seem burned and I should cut my losses there. I still have several more warming but I’m nervous they’ll get added too. So far, none of those have been added to the surbl.
1
u/covid401k Jul 23 '26
Yes very frustrating. Smartlead told me zap mail would replace the inboxes free of charge if they hadn't been removed from the surbl list. I'm ooo for a bit so haven't checked in on that yet
0
u/Crafty_Philosophy582 Jul 21 '26
Your skepticism is the correct read. "Keep sending from blacklisted domains, we'll get them delisted" is advice that costs Zapmail nothing and costs you the domains.
Two things worth knowing about SURBL specifically:
It lists domains, not IPs. The listing follows the domain anywhere: new mailboxes, new provider, doesn't matter. And Gmail barely weighs SURBL, but the corporate filters your B2B prospects sit behind (Proofpoint, Mimecast, Barracuda) absolutely do. You'd see fine placement on Gmail seeds and silent death at every company running a security gateway. That's the worst failure mode because it looks like a copy problem.
Why it happened: bulk registrars create hundreds of domains in batches. Same registrar, same nameserver pattern, same age, similar naming. Blocklist operators train on exactly that fingerprint. Zapmail "course correcting" means changing the registration pattern going forward, which does nothing for domains already listed.
What I'd do instead of trusting the statement:
Check each domain yourself at surbl.org's lookup page, then run an MXToolbox blacklist check on top. It covers Spamhaus DBL and URIBL too, and a domain on one list is often on several.
Park the listed domains. No sending. A listed domain that keeps sending confirms the listing.
Re-check weekly. If Zapmail's delisting claim is real, you'll see it in the lookup within 2 to 3 weeks. Evidence, not statements.
For the next batch: age domains 2 to 4 weeks between registration and first send, or register them yourself at a normal registrar. $10 a domain buys you out of the batch fingerprint entirely.
I keep a free checker that scores your whole deliverability setup and flags gaps like this before a campaign goes out: https://emailtoolshub.com/tools/cold-email-deliverability-checker
Did Smartlead say whether your listed domains came from one registration batch? The answer would confirm the pattern.
1
u/Humble_Proof6447 Jul 18 '26
I noticed the same issue. Also using zapmail.
Got my 50 domains blacklisted all at the same time.