External Email Forwarders: The End of an Era
For the longest time, its been a convenience to use email forwarders to send messages to free, online services. However, that ability is coming to an end. The evolution of the Internet often prompts change, and this is merely one of them. The Problem
Like most shared hosting providers, have offered email forwarders within cPanel. This lets customers automatically forward email from one address to another.
Oftentimes, forwarders are created to forward email to external providers, such as Gmail. This would allow users to collect all of their messages in one location. But that’s not where the problem lies.
This labels the hosting provider as the server sending spam and inadvertently causes our IP addresses to get blacklisted. In turn, this causes normal mail to be rejected by other providers and damages our overall network reputation.
If you’ve ever had an email or IP address blacklisted, it can cause all kinds of trouble. Especially from a professional or business standpoint.
It can result in your email interactions coming to a screeching halt.
Most hosting provides will soon begin blocking the ability to add new forwarders to known free providers.
This includes, but is not limited to, Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.
Conclusion cPanel email forwarders are not a suitable solution for forwarding mail to an external email account on another server. While this appears to be a quick and simple solution up front, this can lead to severe consequences for your mail reputation and overall email deliverability.