Best Practices 8 Reasons Web Hosts Need an Outbound Spam Filter By Ciara Noonan | 3 minute read If you are a web host without an outbound spam filter, there is a good chance you have experienced IP reputation and blocklisting issues. Sooner or later, spam will find a way to infiltrate unsecure servers, meaning these IPs will end up on blocklists such as Spamhaus and Spamcop. When this happens, mail from this IP will be blocked — meaning no mail being received or delivered. For web hosts, this means a lot of understandably upset customers and a lot of time and effort to be delisted. An outbound spam filter will protect web hosts and their networks from blocklists and bad IP reputations. 8 Reasons All Web Hosts Need an Outbound Spam Filter To Maintain a Clean IP ReputationIt’s important that web hosts maintain a clean IP reputation. It is easy to investigate the status of an IP address and it could be a losing point from a customer’s view for your company against another with a squeaky clean IP reputation. To Eliminate Blocklisting IssuesEnding up on a blocklist is easy when there is no outbound spam filter in place. Getting delisted, however? Not as simple. Depending on the offence, blocklists could choose to remove you at your request. Or, they may refuse — it’s their call. To Save Money in the Long-TermNot only is being blocklisted a pain, it will actually end up costing you money in the long run. Download our white paper; The Hidden Cost of Blocklisting, to read just how arduous the delisting process can be. Spam is GrowingSpam isn’t going anywhere any time soon. In fact, according to the 2017 Annual Cybersecurity Report by Cisco, spam accounts for almost 65% of total email volume. This number is alarming — and it’s not getting any smaller, with Cisco reporting, “The percentage of spam with malicious attachments is increasing and adversaries appear to be experimenting with a wide range of file types to help their campaigns succeed.” Email is important to your customersThe clients of web hosts rely on email and expect 100% reliable email deliverability. If the web host cannot provide this, it’s likely they will look elsewhere. An outbound spam filter will ensure their email deliverability is uninterrupted. It only takes one bad appleIf you think it takes a lot to be blocklisted, think again. One single compromised account in your network can see your IP ending up on a blocklist. Put simply: It’s not worth the risk. Your time and resources are important If you are a small business, do you have the time it will take to be delisted and to deal with the negative backlash from your customers? If you are a bigger outfit, do your employees have the time to deal with the same issues? There is little more frustrating than spending resources on something that could have easily been avoided. Join the fight against spamIt’s time to make things harder, not easier for spammers. By using an outbound spam filter in your network, you’ll be one less place spammers can spam. MailChannels makes it easy to get secure and reliable email delivery for your customers. Our SMTP relay service, MailChannels Outbound, is the only service that will accept 100% of your mail — including spam — notifying you through our Cloud Console.