GreenGeeks uses an outbound email filtering platform, powered by MailChannels.
This article is intended to answer any questions you may have about Outbound Email Filtering. If your question isn’t answered here, let us know in the comments.
If your email service is not hosted at GreenGeeks (for example, if your MX records point to Google G Suite or a domain registrar), this information does not apply to your mail.
What is Outbound Email Filtering?
GreenGeeks is using the MailChannels outbound email filtering platform.
That means all the email sent from our servers passes through filters before being delivered. The filters are sophisticated algorithms based on years of machine learning that spot spam-like activity in outgoing email.
If spam-like activity is detected, the filters can hold or block the suspect messages. The ability to prevent spam from being sent is essential for a host like GreenGeeks. Reports of spam coming from our network can cause our email server IP addresses to be blacklisted (blocked from other servers that accept mail).
When blacklisting happens, all mail from the server at that IP address is affected. So your completely legitimate email is blacklisted, along with the spam that may have been sent from the server. That kind of all-or-nothing approach is not a great solution to the problem of spam. But for a long time, it was the only solution available.
The MailChannels filtering helps us block outgoing spam before it can cause our servers to become blacklisted. That improves our email server’s reputations, making blacklisting of servers on our network less likely, which keeps your legitimate email flowing freely.
Updating SPF Records to Work With Outbound Filtering
If your domain uses GreenGeeks DNS, the changes necessary for Outbound Filtering have been done automatically. You don’t need to do any manual configuration.
Your domain uses GreenGeeks DNS if the name servers for the domain point to:
ns1.greengeeks.net
ns2.greengeeks.net
Note that GreenGeeks name servers may also have a prefix, ***.greengeeks.com, and the DNS records may include name server entries for ***.websitehostserver.net.
You can check the name servers for your domain on the web.
If you are not using GreenGeeks name servers
If you are using a third-party DNS service, a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record must be added to the DNS settings for your domain name for it to work correctly with our outbound email filter.
Here’s the two records that you’d want to re-create in your DNS(replace ggexample.com with your domain name):
| Location | Type | Value |
| ggexample.com | TXT(SPF) | v=spf1 a mx include:spf.greengeeks.net ?all |
| _mailchannels.ggexample.com | TXT | v=mc1 auth=greengeeks |
The SPF record is required to let the recipient servers know that MailChannels network is an authorized sender for your domain. The _mailchannels TXT record is to restrict the MailChannels accounts that can send mail from your domain.
Check with your provider for specific DNS configuration instructions.
If there is an existing SPF record at the third party DNS service
If you already have an SPF record, you don’t want to replace it. Instead, add:
include:spf.greengeeks.net
to the entry. That must be added before “?all” in the value. For example, if your current SPF record is:
v=spf1 a mx ?all
After adding the new value, it would look like this:
v=spf1 a mx include:spf.greengeeks.net ?all
Until your SPF record is updated, outgoing email may not be delivered (depending on your existing SPF configuration). When you update your SPF record, it could take up to 48 hours for your updated DNS to propagate across the internet.
If you need help to determine the appropriate updated SPF record for your domain, Contact the GreenGeeks Support Team from your Dashboard.
Dealing With Spam Bounce-Backs
If you receive a bounce-back message, it means your email was flagged as potential spam by the Outbound Email Filters.
That means the message meets most of the typical indications of a spam message. Those indications can include the contents of the message body, the subject line, or file attachments.
If you believe that the message is legitimate and has been incorrectly flagged as spam, visit the link in the bounce-back message to mark the bounce-back as a false-positive. The link can be found in the bounce-back message on the line, “Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 5.7.1 [CS] Message blocked.”
Click the “Not Spam” button to confirm that the message is legitimate, and it will automatically be routed to MailChannels for review.
The review process can take some time to complete, so please be patient while the message is processed.