Knowledgebase

Spam is an ever increasing problem in today's digital world.  Not only is it a big waste of time and server resources, it's also a nuisance.  Perhaps more importantly, often spam can contain malware links or other dangerous attachments.

Greylisting is a fairly new weapon in use to try to fight the growing amounts of spam.  With this new method, the server helps to block out huge amounts of spam before it even reaches your inbox.

Greylisting is a method of defending e-mail users against spam by implementing a simple protocol to get servers to verify who they are.  In a nutshell, the recipient server looks at the sending server's details and tries to determine if it is genuine or not.  If the sender has already been accepted from a previously sent email - Greylisting is unlikely to take place.  However, if it is an email from a new source / sender, the recipient server will "temporarily reject" the email.   If the sending server is legitimate and has been set up correctly, it will re-send the email again after a short delay and the email will be accepted and delivered. 

In the real world, this usually happens quickly - although it can affect *some* genuine email delivery timeframes - especially where new accounts are concerned.  However, if the sending party has configured their server correctly, it should not be a significant delay.  Since Greylisting is a worthwhile tool to try to combat the huge amounts of spam, we feel it is worth the small delay you may experience.


What to do if I suspect genuine email is being blocked?

All new Purple Dog accounts have Greylisting enabled by default.  This is to help us protect you, our servers and all our customers.  In rare circumstances we may consider disabling Greylisting for your account with sufficient justification.

Meanwhile, if you are having any issue receiving genuine emails - please do open a support ticket and provide the sender's email address so that we can check if it has been held up in the Greylisting.

Thank you for your understanding and co-operation.