SPF Demystified: The Complete Guide to SPF Records

December 12, 2024 Reading time: 43 minutes

Whether you host your own mail server or you outsource your email needs, if your domain sends even a small amount of email, you need a robust, accurate SPF record. Your SPF record helps protect your domain's reputation by making it more difficult for spammers, phishers, and other evildoers to spoof email from your domain. When you publish an SPF record, you let other mail servers know exactly which hosts are allowed to send mail for your domain, and which are not. Large email services may even refuse mail from domains with a missing or invalid SPF record, tightening their stranglehold on email. And, unfortunately, even a small error in your SPF record can make it invalid, resulting in bounced or lost outgoing mail for your domain. It's important that you get your SPF record right.

This guide provides a detailed explanation and several examples to help you understand SPF: what it does, how it works, and how to build a suitable SPF record. If you just need a quick solution, though, our SPF Record Wizard can walk you through the process, check for common mistakes, and suggest an SPF record for your domain, suitable for copy-pasting into a DNS TXT record.

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