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In a 2026 sample of 330 IPv4 addresses associated with 11 VPS providers, reverse DNS (PTR) coverage ranged from 0% to 100%, and 40 addresses appeared on at least one of eight queried blocklists. Those numbers describe sampled provider-announced address space—not the IP a customer will receive, or whether mail from that IP will reach an inbox.
What the sample measured—and what it did not
In a DEV Community article posted September 28, 2026, author zihuama reports sampling 30 IPv4 addresses for each of 11 VPS providers, using the seed 20260928. The sampling frame was IPv4 space announced by each provider’s mapped autonomous system (AS), rather than a list of addresses assigned to customer VPSs. The author says the process selected candidate /24 pools from announced prefixes, sampled /24s, and then selected a host address. A BGP origin check reportedly matched the target ASN for all 330 addresses.
That distinction limits what the results can say. An announced address may not be assigned to a customer, and the author describes /24 as an approximation of customer allocation granularity. The sample therefore does not establish the odds that a buyer will receive an IP with PTR or a blocklist listing. Provider ranges, routes, DNS records, registrations, and list contents can also change over time.
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How much reverse DNS did the sample have?
The author reports PTR records for 163 of 330 addresses, or 49.4%. A PTR record—often called reverse DNS—maps an IP address to a hostname. The table shows the reported result in each 30-address provider sample; it is not a ranking of customer experience or a provider-wide rate.
| Provider | Addresses with PTR | Sample rate |
|---|---|---|
| BandwagonHost | 30/30 | 100% |
| Hetzner | 29/30 | 96.7% |
| Contabo | 29/30 | 96.7% |
| RackNerd | 23/30 | 76.7% |
| Vultr | 18/30 | 60% |
| Linode | 16/30 | 53.3% |
| OVH | 11/30 | 36.7% |
| Oracle Cloud | 4/30 | 13.3% |
| DigitalOcean | 3/30 | 10% |
| Alibaba Cloud | 0/30 | 0% |
| Tencent Cloud | 0/30 | 0% |
These are author-reported measurements in a sample of announced AS space. They do not estimate a particular buyer’s chance of receiving a PTR record. Reverse DNS defaults are a configuration or policy choice, not a probability that transfers from this sample to an individual VPS.
What does the blocklist figure mean?
The author reports that 40 of 330 addresses—12.1%—hit at least one of eight queried public blocklists. The checked lists were all.s5h.net, bl.spamcop.net, dnsbl-1.uceprotect.net, dnsbl.dronebl.org, dnsbl.spfbl.net, hostkarma.junkemailfilter.com, psbl.surriel.com, and bl.blocklist.de. Spamhaus zen.spamhaus.org was excluded because it refused queries from public resolvers.
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The aggregate needs unpacking: the author attributes 36 of the 40 hits to dnsbl.spfbl.net. RackNerd accounted for 24 reported hits, one in each of 24 distinct sampled /24 blocks. The author interprets that pattern as potentially reflecting a judgment about address space rather than 24 individually demonstrated spam sources, while noting that the cause and the list’s policy cannot be established from outside. That is an interpretation, not proof of why any particular address was listed.
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So “12.1% were on a blocklist” means at least one hit among those eight queried lists in this sample. It is not a universal blocklist verdict: one major list was not queried, and the result depends on the lists and query conditions used.
Does a blocklist hit predict email delivery?
No. The article did not test sending or receiving mail, SMTP rejections, or inbox placement. A listing by one queried service does not establish that a message will bounce; a clean result on the eight queried lists does not establish that mail will be delivered to an inbox. The sample cannot be used as a deliverability comparison between providers.
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For a mail-dependent workload, check the actual IP assigned to the VPS and test the relevant mail behavior separately. A provider’s sampled announced address space cannot substitute for checking the customer-assigned address.
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PTR hostname, RDAP registrant, and BGP origin describe different aspects of an IP address. The article reports examples where they did not match: a Vultr-origin address had a West Coast Internet Provider LLC RDAP registration and a Quadranet PTR; an Oracle-origin address had a HostGator.com LLC registration and a UnifiedLayer PTR; and a RackNerd/ColoCrossing-origin address had a Quadranet PTR.
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These differences mean a PTR name is not proof of ownership. A stale reverse-DNS entry from a previous holder is one possible explanation, but the author says the cause cannot be proven from outside. The author also reports that a purported abuse-role result of 330/330 was withdrawn: the parser had searched for the word “abuse” anywhere in the JSON instead of verifying an entity role, and a stricter ten-record spot check found 0/10. That illustrates how a loose definition can produce a misleading metric; the withdrawn 100% figure is not a valid finding.
How should a VPS buyer use these numbers?
Use the results as a snapshot of sampled announced address space, not as a provider recommendation or forecast for an assigned VPS IP. The useful distinctions are:
- For reverse DNS: treat each percentage as the result for that provider’s 30-address sample, not the likelihood that your server will have a PTR record.
- For blocklists: look at which list produced a hit, not only the aggregate, and remember that the checks covered eight lists rather than every list.
- For mail: verify the address actually assigned to you and assess mail delivery separately; the study did not test it.
- For identifying an IP: do not treat a PTR hostname as ownership evidence; PTR, RDAP registration, and BGP origin can identify different entities.
The author says the raw records and sampler are public, identifies the dataset as vps-audit-2026-09.json under CC BY 4.0, and points to the GitHub repository mazihua-lgtm/vps-ip-audit-2026-09. Those availability and licensing details are claims in the article.
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