This article is about email deliverability. For more background on this topic, please see the following blog post: Everything You Need To Know About Email Deliverability
An SPF record can help to reduce the chances of your email address being spoofed, and increase the deliverability of your emails.
They do this by providing a list of mailserver IP addresses that are permitted to send emails from your domain, and if an email fails the SPF check (i.e. it wasn't set by an authorised mailserver) then it is more likely to be marked as spam by the recipient's email provider, or be outright blocked.
If you use us as your email provider then we set an SPF record for your domain by default, but if you use third-party services that send emails on your behalf (for example a newsletter provider like MailChimp or ConvertKit) then you'll need to merge their SPF record with our own, and if you use a third party email provider like GSuite, then you'll want to replace our SPF record entirely with theirs.
How to Merge an SPF Record
Our SPF record by default will be as follows:
v=spf1 include:spf.stackmail.com a mx -all
To add in another service to the SPF record (for example Mailerlite) then you just need to insert their "include" statement into the existing SPF record, with the end result looking like the following:
v=spf1 include:_spf.mlsend.com include:spf.stackmail.com a mx -all
You can update the SPF record by following these steps:
- Log into cp.lyricalhost.com using your normal details. If you have not logged into LyricalCP before then you can find the instructions for logging in for the first time here.
- Click 'Manage' next to the domain name you're looking to update
- Select 'Manage DNS'
- Scroll down until you find the TXT record with a Data field that starts v=spf1, and then add in the appropriate include statement.
If you're replacing our SPF record with the SPF record of your third party email provider (for example GSuite) then you'll want to follow the same steps as above, but at step 4 you'll want to replace the value in the Data field completely with the SPF record given to you by your email provider.
