SURBL Delisting

Your outbound mail is bouncing, replies don’t arrive, and LinkedIn is marking your links as suspicious. SURBL lists domains, so switching tools or registering a new domain won’t fix it. We find what caused the listing, fix it, and handle the conversation with SURBL until you’re removed.

Got listed? Delisting request denied?

We find the cause, fix it, and get you removed, usually in 1-3 weeks.

Book a free call

Fixed fee · No PII needed · Request to SURBL within 2 days of kickoff.

Our research, covered independently

Subdomains at 34 US universities hijacked by Hazy Hawk to serve spam
Read the story →
Expired domain left in New Zealand’s national stadium DNS
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79 dormant domains used to impersonate a top US real estate team
Read the story →
See all research →

How a SURBL Listing Happens

Nearly every listing we see comes down to one of these seven causes. The fix is different for each, so the first job is finding out which one is yours.

1

Spam traps

2

Manual reports

3

Missing unsubscribe

4

Lookalike domains

5

Spoofing

6

Bad links

7

Compromised accounts

What Makes SH Consulting Different

SURBL's replies are short, confident and rarely name the cause, so we start by finding it ourselves: database hygiene, address collection, confirmed opt-in, brand impersonation,
spoofing, lookalike domains. Then we fix it.

We know what SURBL expects a sender to have fixed before they will delist, and we don't ask until it's done. Every request is prepared with you and backed by changes actually made.

Alex Shakhov

Alex Shakhov

Founder & CEO

Leads security and operations. Author of our vulnerability disclosures and published research.

Luke Martinez

Luke Martinez

Head of Deliverability

Leads delisting and deliverability. 12 years at SendGrid, a decade in contact with SURBL.

Who We Work With

We handle SURBL listings across the platforms outbound teams run on, including:

Whether the listing came from a sales sequence, a marketing database, a compromised mailbox or spoofing, the process is the same: find the cause, fix it, and make the improvements clear to the SURBL team. Any size company, any platform, and IT providers handling a delisting for a client.

Our Process

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Ready to start?

Book a free call

What to Expect

1 to 3 weeks

Often, getting delisted is the quick part. The real value of the engagement is helping you identify, understand and correct the underlying behavior that caused the listing, and putting guardrails and practices in place to prevent future ones.

No PII

You never send us email addresses. We work from recipient domains only, the part after the @, plus your SURBL correspondence and either read-only access to your ESP or CRM or screen-share sessions where we never hold credentials. No content samples, no recipient IPs, no PII.

Questions We Hear Most

Can we pay SURBL to remove us?

No, and neither can we. There's no fee and no fast lane. The only way off is showing them you understand the cause and have fixed it.

We submitted delisting requests and never heard back. Are they ignoring us?

Almost certainly not. Check your own spam folder and admin quarantine first: SURBL's reply contains your listed domain, so your own gateway blocks it. We see this constantly. If there's genuinely no ticket confirmation, something went wrong in the submission, and we resubmit together with a paper trail.

Should we register a new domain and send from that?

Please don't. Mailbox providers treat most brand-new domains as spam by default, and SURBL now lists the brand being advertised, not only the domain doing the sending. You'd end up with two problems instead of one.

Does switching ESP or sales tool clear the listing?

No. It's your domain that's listed, not the tools you use to send email from it.

Are links the problem?

Sometimes a specific one is. A single http:// link in a signature can trip a filter. We find that link if it exists; we don't ask you to strip links out of your mail.

We're SOC 2 / GDPR-bound. What do you need?

Recipient domains only. No addresses, no IPs, no message content.

Do you guarantee removal?

No. SURBL delists when the root cause is corrected. Determining the root cause and fixing it is the work we do. We can't promise an outcome we don't control, and we won't submit a request until there's a real change behind it.

Listed on SURBL?
Get Delisted. Stay Delisted.

Bring whatever SURBL has told you. In 30 minutes we'll tell you the likely cause and what it will take to fix.

Book a Call

All consultations are confidential.