SPF Record to Prevent Spoofing & Improve E-mail Reliability

June 16, 2016 2.3k views
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need2011
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need2011

I have a SPF record and someone is spoofing it and the my email go to spam. I have a newsletter that I need to get out and I am having problems. Here is the current SPF file and it is not working like it should. I am in the US and someone is spoofing my email address from South America.

Here is my SPF record.

v=spf1 a mx ptr include:fastdomain.com ?all TTL 14400

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

2 comments
  • gndo June 16, 2016

    Have you used a free service like mxtoolbox to check your spf and dkim records?

  • need2011 June 16, 2016

    I have used mail-tester.com this told me that my SPF was not good. But it does not tell me what to change it to. ?

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1 Answer
gndo June 16, 2016

Use this DO tutorial on SPF to guide your SPF value. Note that there is no "TTL 14400" in the SPF standard.

How To use an SPF Record to Prevent Spoofing & Improve E-mail Reliability
by Pablo Carranza
A carefully tailored SPF record will reduce the likelihood of your domain name getting fraudulently spoofed and keep your messages from getting flagged as spam before they reach your recipients.
Reply
  • need2011 June 16, 2016

    I have seen that but I cannot understand it. I have no idea what it all means relating to what each one will actually do? Is this standardized meaning that a set of rules will work on any mail server? Can anyone suggest rules to try to see if they can work for me? I hate to sound stupid but I don't have a clue as to what I need.

    Thanks for any help gndo.

    • gndo June 16, 2016

      @need2011 - Try the simplest first, and remember that it can take hours for your DNS entries to propagate. If you want to just send from your domain:

      v=spf1 mx a:yourdomainhere  ~all

      If you want to also send via another domain like google gmail

      v=spf1 mx a include:_spf.google.com ~all

      or fastdomain.com instead of google gmail

      v=spf1 mx a include:fastdomain.com ~all

      Note that I simplified the 'A' record host for the 2nd and 3rd example. Good luck.

      • need2011 June 16, 2016

        Thanks for all your help. I will play with it for the next day or so to see what can work.

        Could you please elaborate on the 'A' record host a bit. Would this be a variable that I would need to change?

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