Royal Deer Design » gmail

[Solved] Removing your IP from the Gmail Blacklist – Step by Step Solution

Sheuli — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 03:29:24 +0000

Being blacklisted by Gmail is relatively easy, especially if you use WordPress and do not worry much about the security of your site. Being listed on a Gmail Blacklist means your emails do not reach Gmail recipients, or your messages (sent via blacklisted server IP) go straight to the Spam folder. Google’s Blacklist is different than other blacklist and it is not easy to be de-listed.

Our long story short: we host sites of some of our clients on dedicated servers. One account on one of the servers was hacked (reason: not updated WordPress, weak admin password or some unknown plug-in installed) and started sending thousands of spam emails. The server was getting down (huge CPU and Memory usage) and of course our IP got listed on few blacklists. We took action and cleaned up our name (read IP), below you can read how we fixed the problem.

Step by step solution:

Cleanup your server. Detect the issue, remove the problem, and change passwords for your FTP and admin panel. Ask your hosting provider to scan your server searching for malwares and viruses. Monitor the site and logs for few days.
Create an account on mxtoolbox.com, check your IP. There you should be listed on some of those blacklists. Make sure to be removed from all lists – you need to work with each case separately. For some of them you need to simply wait and they will keep monitoring you for a week or so to see if your IP is still spamming. For others you need to send a request for removal and explain that you cleaned up your hacked server. You probably do not need a mxtoolbox paid account, because a free account should be sufficient.
IFF (only and only if) you are 100% sure your server is clean and mxtoolbox.com show that your IP is not listed anywhere, you can contact Google. You need to fill out this form – Report a delivery problem between your domain and Gmail.

Very important:

You need to answer all the questions there. Most of them are very technical and require an access to your server logs and settings. For some of the questions you may not have an exact answer, but provide there as accurate information as you can. If you are not a developer, find one :), or ask tech support of your hosting provider to answer those questions.
Be polite in your respond, say ‘thank you’ in the “Additional Information” section
Provide as much accurate information as possible.

It takes at least 1 month for Google to look into this and action. Unfortunately, you will not be notified about that, so you should set up some simple script that will send you an every day an email from your banned server IP. If one day you see this email in your Inbox, you know what that means :).

How to prevent being listed on blacklists:

Don’t spam :)
Keep a high security on your server, which starts with as simple task such as keeping your passwords difficult and periodically changed.
Make sure to update your CMS (such as WordPress) and plug-ins you use
Do not use unknown plug-ins or themes for your site. Buy them from well-known companies (such as themeforest.net).
Don’t host your site on shared-hosting. Always use good quality hosting providers. Forget about all those cheap GoDaddy for $3 per month solutions. If you are serious about your business, you will need to spend at least $50/month on a quality hosting.
If your website sends a lot of emails (password reminders, registration emails etc.), you should use mandrill.com.

Gmail Outage Disrupts Businesses Monday

Sheuli — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 10:59:32 +0000

For millions of employees and employers Monday morning brought along some additional stress as Gmail experienced a brief outage, causing various businesses emails to become debilitated. Though the disruption affected personal Gmail accounts as well, those most affected were businesses whose workday was disrupted due to such an inconvenience. Google noted this issue as a “global service disruption,” and also advised that Chrome was experiencing crashing in some instances.

The issue was resolved and Gmail was functioning properly by early Monday afternoon. For many, the outage though short (lasting a mere 10 minutes for some), created a feeling of fear and distrust towards cloud services such as Gmail, Google Apps, and Google Drive. Many of these cloud services are what businesses rely on to help organize projects and allow for tasks to get completed quickly and efficiently.

Various media outlets reported on the incident. However, the site that appeared to create the most buzz around the issue was Twitter. Tweets around the world circulated and served as the voice of frustration surrounding the outage.

As Tuesday came and businesses resumed their normal day-to-day activities employees remained optimistic of Gmail’s functionality, yet uncertain of just how trusting they could be of such a service.

ACH Payment 5535134 Canceled – ACH Payment Canceled Malware Email

Sheuli — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:53:10 +0000

If by any chance you receive an email from an address such as ach.01[at]nacha.org and with a subject line “ACH Payment 5535134 Canceled,” be aware this email contains a virus. This email is obviously not from the ACH and it is an attempt by Internet criminals to trick internet users into opening the attached file which contains malware.

Why do we write about this? We have recently experienced few alerts from our email server about this suspicious email. This is also a good opportunity for us to acknowledge how well Gmail (that we use to handle emails) deals with spam.

Below original message Royal Deer Design received from Gmail:

The message “ACH Payment 5535134 Canceled” from ach 01 (ach.01[at]nacha.org) contained a virus or a suspicious attachment. It was therefore not fetched from your account …….[at]royaldeerdesign.com and has been left on the server.

If you wish to write to ach, just hit reply and send ach a message.

Thanks,
The Gmail Team

Three More African Countries Now Have Gmail SMS

Sheuli — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:23:42 +0000

Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi now have Gmail SMS chat functionality. The Gmail SMS functionality enables worldwide communication with fellow Gtalk chat users ? even if they’re away from their computer. Gmail users can send and receive SMS messages for free, while non-Gmail users must pay normal texting charges.

The mobile carriers providing the service include MTN, Uganda Telecom and Orange in Uganda, Vodacom in Tanzania and Airtel and TNM in Malawi, per a recent Google Africa blog.

Backing up your mail from Gmail account

Sheuli — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:01:42 +0000

One way to do that is by downloading a copy of all messages in Gmail to an email client such as Microsoft Outlook, Pegasus Mail, Mozilla’s Thunderbird, and Apple Inc.’s Mail.

1. First Sign in to your Gmail account.

2. Click Settings at the top right of your Gmail page, then open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

3. From the section POP Download, select Enable POP for all mail (even mail that’s already been downloaded).

4. Then click Save Changes.

5. The last step is to click Configuration instructions to learn how to configure your email client.

6. After a correct configuration all emails from your Gmail account will be downloaded to your email client.

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Source: Gmail Help.

The death of e-mail?

Sheuli — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 09:25:46 +0000

Because of real time messaging, live chats, texting and Facebook (four billion messages daily) we send less e-mails than few years ago. According to data from comScore, the number of visitors using major e-mail sites like Yahoo and Hotmail is in steady decline. The only winner in that category is Gmail. Amount of Gmail users increased up 10 percent from a year ago.

I am a big fan of Gmail, however few weeks ago I logged in to my old Yahoo and Hotmail email account. The experience was horrible! They were working incredible slow, the interface seemed to be so not user friendly.

It looks like, live messaging is a great way for communication mainly for young and active people looking for a quick respond from friends. I believe that for businesses e-mails are still the best way of communication. Live messaging in many cases would overwhelm busy business people. A bad condition of Yahoo and Hotmail seems to be a result of a competition – Gmail.

30 seconds for Undo Send in Gmail

Sheuli — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:04:30 +0000

On March 19, 2009 Gmail introduced an option Undo Send which held your message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the button which stops process of sending an email and takes you right back to compose. Google constantly adds new periods: 10 seconds, 20 seconds and now 30 seconds.

PC-to-phone service from Google

Sheuli — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 06:59:53 +0000

Google added a free Gmail feature to make calls to telephones anywhere in the world from microphone-equipped computers. As a trial, all calls in the U.S. and Canada are free through the end of the year.

Google plans to make money on this PC-to-phone service by charging 2 cents and up per minute for international calls. You can see a rate chart at www.google.com/voice/b/0/rates.

Multi-account access in Gmail

Sheuli — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 10:13:11 +0000

Google Gmail accounts used to let people access one account at a time per browser. Now, Google allows you to link up to three accounts to your Google account. More information about this feature and how to activate Multi-Account Access in Gmail accounts you can find on an official Gmail Blog.

Email templates in Gmail

Sheuli — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 17:05:32 +0000

[Tip for Gmail users] Responding emails is an everyday task for most of modern businesses. In many cases we repeat some parts of our messages over and over. Responds to clients like quotes and answering general questions do not have to be done by coping and pasting text from other emails. Gmail users can use email templates.

To set up and use email templates in Gmail you have to enable message templates in Gmail. To do so, go to Settings > Labs. Then enable an option Canned Responses and click Save Changes.

To save an email as a template in Gmail compose the message then click Canned responses (it is located beneath the Subject line).

To create a new message or reply using a template in Gmail click Canned responses, then select the preferred template under Open.

Thanks to email templates and recently added to Gmail a new option which allows adding rich text signatures to emails, Gmail is a powerful tool for busy with emails traffic businesses.