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
A DMARC record is designed to enhance DKIM and SPF records by allowing a domain owner to specify what an mailserver should do if it receives an email from the domain that fails either or both of the DKIM and SPF record checks (for example, if an email was sent that pretends to come from your domain) rather than leaving it up to the mailserver in question. A DMARC record also provide a reporting function so that mailservers can report back to you about emails that pass or fail these checks.
In the event an email fails the DKIM and SPF records check, a DMARC record tells the receiving mail server what to do. The options are:
- nothing/none (this leaves the receiving mail server with the choice of what to do, which is likely mark the email as spam);
- quarantine (This may result in the email being sent to a dedicated quarantine mailbox - generally when contacting big companies where a mail administrator will go through a separate quarantine folder - or result in the email being automatically sent or spam), or;
- reject the email.
The majority of email marketing providers are advising people to set it to none, which meets Google and Yahoo’s compliance standards and is also less likely to cause problems in the event you don’t set the DKIM and SPF records for your domain.
If you are hosted with us and would like to add a DMARC record for your domain then you can do so by following the following steps.
Please note you need both SPF and DKIM records set up before adding a DMARC record. See How to set an SPF record and How to set a DKIM record for the 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 timehere.
- Next to the domain name you want to set the DMARC record for, click 'Manage'.
- Scroll down to the 'Email' section and click the DMARC Wizard icon.
- Click 'Add DMARC'.
As this creates a DNS record, it can take up to 24 hours for the DMARC record to start functioning for your domain.
If you have any questions or need help, please raise a support ticket from the account referencing this article and which step you’re stuck at.
