What SPF Records Are And Why You Need Them

Have you heard of SPF records? It’s a bit of a technical topic but it’s something you should know about especially if you have a business that sends transactional emails.

What is an SPF record?

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record is a type of record that you put in your DNS database.

It verifies if the incoming email has been sent from an authorized mail server and specifies which servers can send emails from your domain. To put it simply, it’s a form of email authentication method.

SPF record is designed to protect email senders and recipients from spamming, phishing, forgery and spoofing during the delivery of the email.

Do you need SPF records?

Yes, we do recommend you put SPF records in place especially if you are a business that sends transactional emails.

Aside from being an essential part of domain ownership, it also ensures that no one can spoof your domain name, sending emails to other people claiming it came from you. SPF also improves email deliverability.

What happens if you don’t have SPF records?

If you forego adding SPF records in your DNS database, any of these things can happen:

  • Spammers can pretend to be you, sending out emails that can harm your brand to other networks. Without email authentication, they can pose as you to mislead recipients into thinking the email came from a legitimate source.

    They do this to steal personal information such as credit card numbers, passwords, social security number and the like.

  • Phishing and whaling attacks (those that target high-profile employees) can possibly lead to malware, fraud and financial loss.
  • Your email can be flagged as spam by other email servers and reject it. This is bad for business because if you are emailing all the leads you are getting from your website, they won’t be able to read them because your email is going straight into their spam folder, not their inbox.

Feel free to reach out to our team, [email protected] if you need help in setting up SPF records. We can also check your website, review how it is performing and give recommendations on how you can improve it further.