This final intelligence module checks whether your domain has been flagged anywhere that matters — DNS-based blacklists, general TLD reputation signals, and Google Safe Browsing status — since a flagged domain can silently block email delivery or trigger browser warnings for every visitor.
🌿 Beginner — Plain English explanations
Your domain has a reputation, whether you've checked it or not
Behind the scenes, various services maintain lists of domains and IP addresses associated with spam, malware, or phishing. If your domain ends up on one of these lists — sometimes through no fault of your own, such as inheriting a previously-used IP address, or a compromised plugin sending spam without your knowledge — the consequences can be significant and easy to miss until someone reports a problem.
What's checked
- DNS blacklists (DNSBLs) — lists like Spamhaus that many mail servers check before accepting email from your domain. Being listed can cause your outgoing emails to silently land in spam folders or get rejected entirely.
- TLD reputation — baseline trust signals associated with your top-level domain, independent of your specific site.
- Google Safe Browsing status — whether Google has flagged your site as unsafe, which triggers a full-page red warning in Chrome and several other browsers before a visitor can even reach your site.
- Domain age — newly-registered domains are statistically more likely to be flagged as suspicious by spam filters and security tools, even if nothing is actually wrong.
- Domain expiry — how many days remain before your domain's registration lapses, so you're not caught off guard.
- WHOIS privacy — whether your registrant details are privacy-redacted. Not inherently bad, but combined with a very new domain it's a useful compound signal.
- Certificate Transparency — flags an unusually high number of TLS certificates issued for your domain recently, which can indicate abuse of a forgotten or misconfigured subdomain.
Why this matters
A Safe Browsing flag in particular is one of the most severe things that can happen to a site's traffic — nearly all visitors turn back at that warning screen. These flags most often result from a genuine compromise (malware injected via an outdated plugin, a hacked contact form used to send spam) rather than anything intentional, which makes regular monitoring valuable even for well-maintained sites.
How to fix it
If flagged, the priority is finding and removing the underlying cause (compromised code, spam-sending scripts) before requesting delisting — delisting without fixing the root cause typically results in being re-flagged.