Enabling SPF and DKIM Record in cPanel

Posted on July 21st, 2016

Nowadays, the majority of spam emails have fake data in the ‘from’ field. Spammers and fraudsters use special tools to send their mail on behalf of the real owner of their e-mail address. To reduce spam, you can use just two records in your domain name system(DNS). These are SPF and DKIM record. The records reduce the spam and improve email delivery in a different way.

A Sender Policy Frame(SPF) record indicates which mail server is authorize to send mail for a domain. SPF record is an effective and simple method which lets you avoid spam issues. If your domain name has a correct SPF record, then you can assured nobody is able to send fake e-mails on behalf of your domain name. Email recipient perform a check for ‘is the email is coming from an authorized mail server or not’. If not, then the email is considered as a spam. Your SPF record lets the recipient server perform this verification. The SPF record verifies that an email comes from authorized servers.

A Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is another method of e-mail authentication. This method uses information about domain which is published by the domain owner. That information allows the receiving server to verify if the e-mail message was sent by an authorized owner of that domain name. DKIM record adds a digital signature to the emails your mail server sends. The e-mail recipient servers perform a check: “Does the signature match?” If so, then the email is from a trusted sender. Your DKIM DNS record lets the recipient server perform this verification. The DKIM check verifies that the message is signed and associated with the correct domain.

You can reduce the potential for spam email appearing to be sent from your account if you have both an SPF and DKIM record in place. Many of the major email providers use these technologies to help reduce spam.

You can enable the SPF and DKIM record for your domain from your cPanel account.

 

Enable SPF and DKIM 

Here we can discuss about how to enable SPF and DKIM record from your cPanel interface.

1) Login to your cPanel account.

2) Scroll down and select the ‘Authentication icon’ from the e-mail category.

SPF and DKIM

 

3) Then a new window will open and here you can see the options to enable SPF and DKIM records. Click ‘Enable’ and the records will be added to the DNS zone.

SPF and DKIM

 

If you need any further assistance please reach our support department.

 

 

7 Responses to “Enabling SPF and DKIM Record in cPanel”

  1. Vernessa Taylor says:

    Although I’m not hosting with you, I appreciate you sharing this article.

    I have a reseller account but do not have access to DNS records for the primary domain. I’ve been back and forth with the hosting company’s support dept. trying to get my SPF record setup correctly. Lo and behold, they never informed me that I could fix this myself — even without access to DNS records — through cPanel. (To be fair, maybe they didn’t know.)

    At any rate, by following your instructions I finally fixed the SPF record and got a clean bill of health when I checked it through Sparkpost. Thank you!

  2. Clara Ludvigsen says:

    To authenticate your domain, navigate to your domain provider’s site. Then, use the DKIM and SPF information from Mailchimp to update your DNS records. Domain providers use different names for the page where you’ll update the DNS record, like cPanel, Zone Editor, Zone File Settings, Manage Domains, Domain Manager, DNS Manager, or something similar.

  3. Fabrizio says:

    Hello,
    In the actual version of the cpanle there is no more the authentication icon.
    I found the DKIM in the email accounts.
    I did not find the SPF.
    Where is it located now.
    Thank you

  4. Steven says:

    Hi,
    How do i find SPF settings in Plesk? I can only find DKIM and that doesn’t seem to be working when sending mail to Gmail accounts.
    Thanks

Leave a Reply