161 of 360 VPS IPs have no reverse DNS. They're cleaner than the ones that do.
Reverse DNS (PTR record) is the first thing most deliverability guides tell you to check. "No PTR = spammer" is treated as common knowledge. I sampled 360 IPs across 12 VPS providers and checked both their PTR records and their presence on 8 public DNS blocklists. The assumption doesn't hold up. The numbers All 360 IPs, split by whether they had a PTR record at all: IPs On a blocklist Rate No PTR…
The study examined 360 VPS IP addresses from 12 different providers, checking both their reverse DNS (PTR) records and presence on public DNS blocklists. Contrary to common belief, VPS IPs without PTR records were listed on fewer blocklists than those with PTR records. Large cloud providers, like Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and BandwagonHost, often omit PTR configurations due to automated instance provisioning, resulting in higher clean listings.
Smaller hosting operations, however, tend to set up PTR records manually, leading to more listings. Blocklist listings mostly come from SPFBL, indicating potential email authentication issues. Checking PTR records first is a backward approach, as it only correlates with large cloud providers being cleaner. Instead, directly querying blocklists and checking RDAP for registrant information offer stronger signals about IP accountability and risk.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
