Domain Reputation Checker

Two kinds of domain reputation

People search for domain reputation with two different questions in mind, and they need different tools. The first is email reputation, meaning whether mail from or mentioning your domain is trusted by Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and corporate filters. The second is web safety, meaning whether browsers warn visitors that your site is dangerous. That second question is answered by Google Safe Browsing.

This page and our check focus on email reputation. We also explain Safe Browsing below, because a site flagged there often has an email problem too, and the fix starts in the same place.

Google Safe Browsing vs email reputation

If Chrome shows a red warning on your site, sign in to Google Search Console, open the Security issues report, clean the site and request a review. Then run this check, because a hacked site often also lands your domain on Spamhaus DBL or SURBL.

What our domain check covers

Each finding comes as a plain sentence with the fix, for example "SPF uses 12 DNS lookups (limit 10): receivers return permerror." To look at the lists alone, use the domain blacklist check.

• Domain blacklists including Spamhaus DBL, SURBL and URIBL, which filters check for every domain in a message.
• The IPs of your mail servers on 100+ IP blacklists, so you see both sides at once.
• SPF, including the 10 DNS lookup limit from RFC 7208 and the limit of 2 void lookups.
• DKIM for common selectors, with key length and syntax.
• DMARC policy (p=none, quarantine or reject), reporting addresses and alignment settings.
• MX records, so you know where your domain receives mail.

Why authentication is part of reputation

Mailbox providers attach reputation to the domain that passes authentication. When SPF or DKIM passes and aligns with your From domain under DMARC, Gmail can tie the mail to your domain and score it on your history. When authentication fails, the message carries no trusted identity and is judged far more harshly.

Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo require bulk senders (over 5,000 messages a day to their users) to have SPF, DKIM and a DMARC record, one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail, and a spam rate under 0.3%. Microsoft applies similar rules to high volume senders to Outlook.com since May 2025. A domain without these records has a weak reputation by default. Check each record in detail with the SPF checker and the DMARC checker.

How to check domain reputation manually

1. 1 Look up Spamhaus DBL with dig +short yourdomain.com.dbl.spamhaus.org A. Any 127.0.1.x answer means listed.
2. 2 Repeat for multi.surbl.org and multi.uribl.com.
3. 3 Read your SPF with dig +short yourdomain.com TXT and count the include, a, mx, ptr, exists and redirect terms, following each include.
4. 4 Read DMARC at _dmarc.yourdomain.com and note the policy.
5. 5 Open Google Postmaster Tools to see Gmail's view of your domain, including spam rate.

How to improve domain reputation

• Clear any domain listing at the cause, then request removal through the list's site.
• Publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and move DMARC from p=none toward quarantine or reject once reports show all your senders pass.
• Send only to people who asked for your mail, and remove bounces quickly.
• Use separate subdomains for marketing, transactional and cold outreach so one stream cannot hurt the others.
• Keep your website patched, since hacked pages are a common source of DBL and SURBL listings.

Monitor reputation instead of checking once

BlacklistMonitoring keeps watching every domain you add on 100+ lists and checks SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX, BIMI and MTA-STS records for changes. It gives each domain a Domain Health score from 0 to 100 and alerts you by email, Slack, Teams or webhook when something breaks. On Business and higher plans you can connect Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS and Yahoo to see provider data alongside the lists. Learn more about email deliverability monitoring or compare plans.

Frequently asked questions