On the Internet, not only useful information is transmitted, but also unwanted messages. These are called Spam is the term used for spam. A distinction is made between different types of spam. The most common are spam emails, which are sent en masse. Spam can also be found as spamming in forums, where advertisements and links are often posted in the comments of the forums. However, advertising banners on websites, which can sometimes trigger an avalanche of pop-ups, are also referred to as spam.
Websites or IP addresses which have attracted attention due to significant violations of the rules on the Internet, including mass spamming or content harmful to young people, are entered in a spam list by the search engines.
Unwanted contents
Spam lists are often referred to as blacklists. They are used where unwanted content is to be filtered out. They can be found, for example, in spam filters. These spam lists list senders whose e-mails are always considered spam. However, they are also used for censorship. For example, if someone does not want to see certain contents on the net.
Every search engine on the net has its own spam list. Here they work with country-specific lists. This is necessary because the legal requirements differ widely. The spam list keeps a "book" of addresses from which spam is sent in large quantities.
Entry of a website
In order for an IP address or website is entered on a spam list, there is no need to complain. Here the search engines act completely automatically. As soon as a search engine detects that a website violates a policy, it is banned from the index and entered on the spam list. So it can happen that even websites end up where the operator is not even aware of having violated a guideline. If you want to check whether your website is on the spam list, you can do this by a simple search engine query.
IP in spam list, what to do?
If your own website is no longer displayed in the search engine or e-mails no longer reach certain recipients, it is possible that the IP address has been blacklisted. Mostly you will then receive the E-mail should receive a corresponding error message. If this is the case, you can then check whether the public IP address used to send the mails is on a known spam list. For this purpose, there are numerous websites that allow you to query spam lists. The entry on one or more spam lists can have various causes.
Causes and solutions
If you have a flexible IP address, the previous owner may be the reason for the entry on the spam list. In this case it is sufficient to restart the router. After that you will get a new IP address.
If you have a fixed IP address, the reason may be that you have recently sent too many mails to numerous invalid recipients or there is a virus or Trojan on your own PC which sends spam in an uncontrolled way.
Once the cause has been found and remedied, a request for deletion can be made. To do so, visit the website of the corresponding blacklist. Many spam list operators activate the IP address as soon as the request is made. With other operators it can also take a longer time. If you are frequently on a spam list with your IP address, the activation can take much longer or even be rejected.
