SPF, DKIM and DMARC are three DNS records that prove email from your domain is really from you. Since 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have required them for anyone sending email in bulk, and every sender benefits from them. Without them, your messages are far more likely to land in spam.
What each one does
- SPF lists the servers that are allowed to send email for your domain.
- DKIM adds a digital signature to each message, so receiving servers can check it hasn’t been tampered with.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do with email that fails those checks, and can send you reports.
Set up SPF and DKIM
- Log in to cPanel. You can open it from your client area (choose your hosting service, then Login to cPanel), or go to yourdomain.co.uk/cpanel.
- In the Email section, open Email Deliverability.
- Find your domain. If it shows a problem, click Repair and confirm.
If you also send email through another service, such as Microsoft 365 or a newsletter platform, your SPF record needs to include that service too. There can only be one SPF record per domain, so combine them rather than adding a second one.
Add a DMARC record
In cPanel’s Zone Editor, add a TXT record for your domain with the name _dmarc and this value:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourdomain.co.uk
Use your own email address. p=none means “report, but don’t block anything yet”. Once you’re confident all your genuine email passes, you can change it to p=quarantine.