Outbound Email being marked as Spam

To combat spam emails, all outbound email is currently being scanned to identify spam messages. The main reason for the scan is because of thousands of spam emails that are regularly being auto-generated through malware scripts. Email that is being identified as spam will generate the following in a bounce-back email:

550 This message was classified as SPAM and may not be delivered

An increase in outbound spam email is not unusual at this time of the year. Spam messages can cause a server to be blacklisted, and cause unnecessary use of server resources that may lead to slow load times of the websites hosted on that server. The scan and other security measures have been put in place to help stop this from happening.

My outbound email is being flagged as spam, what do I do?

If you find that you have many bounce-back messages identifying your outbound email as spam, then please submit a verified email ticket to our live technical support team. Attach a copy of one of the bounce-back messages to that email. The technical support team can scan your account and identify any possible malware generating messages from your hosting account. You should also submit a ticket (with the bounce-back message) if you believe that your emails are being falsely identified as spam. The support team will be able to tell if a false positive is being generated for your account.

You should also take the time to read Why does SpamAssassin label my email as spam? This tutorial includes the list of common items that may cause your messages to be flagged as spam.

AC
Arnel Custodio Content Writer I

As a writer for InMotion Hosting, Arnel has always aimed to share helpful information and provide knowledge that will help solve problems and aid in achieving goals. He's also been active with WordPress local community groups and events since 2004.

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7 thoughts on “Outbound Email being marked as Spam

  1. This has been, and continues to be, a problem for over two years and its getting worse. I never get bounce backs. My clients just never receive my emails because they are going to spam. I have submitted six tickets, none of which have solved the problem or even told me why this is happening.

    I love Inmotion and have been a customer since 2012, but this is starting to get ridiculous.

    1. Sorry to hear that you’re running into trouble on this one. One thing which I find helpful (and which I will add to this article), is to make sure that your DMARC records are appropriately configured. That’s one of the things anti-spam products have been more strict about lately.

      Also, we’ve recently fully integrated Google Workspace into the products we have available and in many cases the advantage of not having to manage every level of email administration yourself makes up for any extra cost, especially if you send a lot of business email. Hope that helps!

    2. Allways the same problem for , i contacted the technical service , they told me that it was fixed just need to be updated in next 48Hours untill now nothing was fixed i need to contact everyone after sending message to verify if he receved the email , really im not happy with that problem i was with other hosting provider since 2004 i didn’t had that issue , sure im happy with the inmotion vps server but im not happy with the email issue

      1. Hello, and sorry to hear that you’re still experiencing trouble with this. If you are working on a VPS, you have a few extra tools at your disposal. Aside from the usual best practices, I’d strongly recommend enabling and using the more advanced anti-spam tools available in WHM, and frequently review your bouncebacks to help narrow down the cause of the problem. If you need the power of a VPS but don’t want to get bogged down with mail administration, getting a Google Workspace account can be a great way to let Google handle that work for you. Hope that helps!

  2. I don’t want to know why I want it to stop. This is beyond belief. I don’t want anyone telling me what I can mail and what I can’t.

    1. Hi MaryAnne,

      Apologies for the issues with your outbound email being marked as spam. Outbound mail is being scanned due to large outbound amounts of spam email. This has caused servers to be blacklisted resulting in the loss of service by many innocent users. To prevent this from happening, outbound email is scanned.

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