What are Mailing Lists?
Mailing lists are used to send out bulk emails to a group of subscribers. While you can send mail using any mail client to many mailboxes, you will almost certainly get flagged for spamming. Once your domain or IP address gets flagged, it can be quite an ordeal to get it cleared. While you are flagged, most of your emails will be flagged as spam or outright rejected, even if they are not part of a bulk sending. See below for information on domain or IP flagging by RBLs.
Real-Time Black Lists
For most web hosting businesses, monitoring spam senders worldwide would require a significant amount of time and resources. So instead of doing this themselves, they subscribe to RBLs to provide that service for them.
Real-time Black Lists, or RBLs, are organizations that monitor spam trends worldwide. They then provide this information to other businesses as a service.
There were several of these groups, using various methods, that tracked down and flagged spam senders worldwide. Most web hosting services are subscribed to one or several of these RBLs, including Google, Yahoo, and Outlook.
Being listed on any of these lists can be catastrophic to your business. And removing your domain from one of these lists, while not typically difficult, will take time. This is why using mailing list software for sending out bulk emails can be so helpful.
If you suspect that you may be on a blacklist, there are several online tools to check your blacklist status. One of the best is MXToolbox.com.
What is Mailman?
Included with cPanel is the mailing list software called Mailman. Mailman is a powerful tool for managing your mailing lists and sending out bulk mail. Using Mailman, you can manage all your mailing lists and subscribers, as well as manage your emails. Mailman will help guide you through the process to ensure that your emails are not flagged as spam and your domain reputation remains intact.
There are numerous guides available for Mailman. You can find the official guide at https://docs.mailman3.org/en/latest/userguide.html.
Installing the software is as simple as navigating to the Email section in cPanel and selecting Mailing Lists. Once the app opens, you have the option to create a new mailing list or manage existing lists.
How do I create and manage a mailing list?
Step 1: Go to: https://manage.christianwebhost.com/ or click the "Login" button located at the top right of our website. Unless you change them, your login details are the email address and password used when the account was created.
Step 2: Once logged in, click the Services block and choose your cPanel service to access its management page.
Step 3: From the Actions menu on the left, click Login to cPanel (you do not need your cPanel credentials for this method).
Step 4: Navigate to the Email section and click Mailing Lists.
Step 5: Fill out the required fields.
- List Name: This will be the name of the list. It is also the email address associated with the list.
- Domain: Choose which domain you want to use.
- Password: Enter a secure password for managing the list.
- Access Type: Choose whether the list is public or private.
Step 6: Once you are happy with the settings, click Add to create the list.
Step 7: The system will add an alias for the email address owner-[listname]@example.com.
Step 8: Once created, you will see your new mailing list (and any others you have created) at the bottom of the main screen. From here, you have several options for managing your mailing lists:
- Access: You can choose whether your mailing list is public or private. Typically, you will want it set to private.
- Delete: Completely remove the mailing list and all content (this cannot be reversed).
- Change Password: Change the list admin password.
- Manage: Manage the mailing list admins and subscribers.
- Delegation: Add users to help manage your mailing list.