Godaddy.com/Secureserver.net annoyances Christian Donner, April 4, 2009April 9, 2009 I host this blog and a few other personal sites at WebHostingBuzz (WHB), all on Linux. I host the site for the Austrian-American club at Godaddy.com (ASP). Unfortunately, I host the mailing list for the Austrian-American club at WHB as well, requiring frequent emails sent from one domain to the other. We are paying Godaddy for extra space for two email accounts that are in use there. I have experienced repeatedly that emails sent from the WebHostingBuzz relays to a Godaddy account bounce, with the results shown here: Reporting-MTA: dns; xxxxxxx.whbdns.com X-Postfix-Queue-ID: 98B935CAB2 X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; xxx@xxxxxxx.com Arrival-Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 18:25:56 +0000 (GMT) Final-Recipient: rfc822; xxxxx@xxxxxxx.org Original-Recipient: rfc822;xxxxx@xxxxxxx.org Action: failed Status: 5.0.0 Remote-MTA: dns; smtp.secureserver.net Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 553 smartrelay.whbdns.com. <http://unblock.secureserver.net/?ip=69.xx.xxx.xxx> When I reported these bounces, the WebhostingBuzz support staff seemed to care little about their servers being blacklisted by Godaddy. This did not come as a surprise, since they also did not care (or help) when I found a backdoor on my server. There is a good chance that the administrators of other shared accounts on the WHB servers are not as much on top of security breaches as I am, and that some accounts are indeed being used for sending spam. So, the only other option wasto contact Godaddy. I clicked on the unblock link in the bounced email and submitted my request. This came back: Our support staff has responded to your request, details of which are described below: Support Staff Response Dear Sir/Madam, I have sent an unblock request for 69.xx.xxx.xxx to the appropriate department. They should be contacting you shortly after the issue has been reviewed. xxx Online Support And then, after a little while, I got this: Our support staff has responded to your request, details of which are described below: Discussion Notes Support Staff Response Dear Sir or Madam, We have unblocked 69.xx.xxx.xxx. Please let us know if there is any other way in which we can help you Sincerely, xxx Advanced Technical Support Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? I was able to send emails to Secureserver.net and they did not bounce! Unfortunately, it did not last. The above communication happened on 3/23, and today, less than 2 weeks later, the server is blocked again. This is extremely annoying, and because of these ongoing issues with email, I can no longer recommend Godaddy as a hosting provider. Related Posts:Amazon threatens customer of 26 yearsEnphase Envoy Local AccessThe Great Cat Litter Poop OffSUTAB Scam? Web GodaddyhostingSpam blocking
I believe this is a feature, not an annoyance, of GoDaddy. ALL email providers are responsible for blacklisting email servers that are known for sending spam. Otherwise, client inboxes would be full with spam all day, every day. Although, I personally would not use GoDaddy email based on the ridiculously low storage and past bad experiences with their hosting. I use GoDaddy only for thay their best: Domains. Everything else, I use other services. Email? I use Google Apps Standard (free Gmail on your domain). Also, HostDime is a GREAT host. As well as Media Temple (my current host). Only the best. NG
I question the effectiveness of mailserver blacklisting, and I question the metrics that black lists use to identify spamming servers. My mailbox would be full of spam today if weren’t as careful sharing my primary email address, and without spam assassin turned on. Large spam operations are not affected by blacklisting. I suspect that smaller hosters are at a disadvantage dealing with this and that larger hosters are exploiting this to increase their market share.