Recently, I attempted to post a link to my website through my Hootsuite account and received an error saying that my URL had been blocked. This was weird considering that my domain name was new and I had hardly used it for anything. A day later, I had received an email from someone stating that they received an error when trying to Thumb-up my website on Stumbleupon. The actual error stated that my website was Blacklisted on Stumbleupon. Now knowing that my website had been blocked on multiple websites I figured that there must be some sort of a service these websites use to automatically block websites that are potential abuse sites. Researching through support pages and forums resulted in no help. At this point, I was frustrated. However, after some searching, here is what I found and how I got my website unblocked.
I came across this post on Hootsuite support pages where other people seemed to be having the same problem. Users stated that their “new” website had been blocked. This helped me realize that there must be something that happened to result in a URL being blocked so there must be a way to get it removed from this list. I eventually got an email back from Hootsuite but this was a few days later after I had already found the issue. If you are having issues with your website being blocked, here is what you need to do to request your website be unblocked by Hootsuite, Stumbleupon and any other website that uses this service.
I originally found the BlackList Alert website which led me to the site that had my URL recorded as blocked. I typed in my URL, performed a search and found the website that had it listed as blocked. SURBL is a service that provides a Data Feed that websites can use to block URLs that are abusers or potential threats. After finding my website blocked at Blacklist Alert I went to SURBL and did a search for my website using their SURBL Lookup Tool. Once you perform the search and the result shows your website as blocked, you can request that it be unblocked. The website will ask questions you will need to answer. I mentioned that I had just recently launched my website and had never sent out an email blast before. It took a few days, but my website was removed. As of writing this, I have not received an email from SURBL stating that they have removed my site, it was just removed with no notice.
I came to find that it was my URL that was blocked and not my IP address. I have a few other websites on the same IP address and was able to submit those websites to Stumbleupon and post to Hootsuite.
During my search on BlackList Alert there were 2 other locations that listed my URL as blocked but it seems that it was just an old list that contained IP addresses that were blocked and was an old list. SURBL was the list that actually had my website blocked and was causing the issue.
If you are experiencing this issue, I hope it helps. I have no idea why my website was blocked. If I receive a response from SURBL, I will make sure to ask them.
