How to create an SPF record to try and prevent your email from being blocked or marked as spam, it's very important to setup your DNS correctly, one of these steps is to have an SPF record.
SPF means Sender Policy Framework. It is used to match a domain name with a server IP address from which it sends its emails. It consists of a line of text.
Follow this guide to understand what an SPF record does.
- An email is sent.
- An inbound mail server receives the email
- It looks up the domains DNS records to authenticate the SPF record (to check if the server is who it says it is)
- The email either passes or fails authentication
- The receiving Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) decides if the sending IP address is authorised to send email for the users domain.
Actually making the SPF record is quite straight forward. You can use this Microsoft wizard which asks straight forward questions too. When the wizard is completed, you get a link of text.
You need to access your domain DNS control panel and create a new DNS entry.
Create a new DNS record - choose TXT - paste your SPF record (the line of text) in.
Microsoft's friendly SPF record wizard:
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/safety/content/technologies/senderid/wizard/default.aspx
Sadly, some domain hosts - 1&1 included do not offer this facility. I quote:
"It may be some time before the community as a whole adapts to using this policy or a similar one. There is currently no implementation of these policies planned for 1&1 domains."
For IT Support London please get in touch.
