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."
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