WARNING: This is mildly technical –  so if like me, you know enough to be dangerous and are, please give this to someone with a beard, a serious looking pair of glasses with a computer not set up mostly for Facebook.

SPF or the Sender Policy Framework is an e-mail validation system designed to stop spammers using your domain as their ‘From’ Address. It may also increase email deliverability as your emails look less spammy to mail servers, however it is not a given or even the original purpose of SPF.

Let’s take a breath, look out the window and consider the pretty flowers before we head back into heavy tech…

How To Protect Your Email Deliverability & Reputation

This is where it gets a bit technical.

Add this into your Domain Name System (DNS) as a record on the domain you use as the ‘from’ address in your emails.

As an example, if you send from TheBoss@yourcompany.com.au, you want to add the record to the yourcompany.com.au domain. It is suggested you forward the following information to the team responsible for looking after the domain/website.

Add the following TXT record to your Domain Name Records if an SPF record does not yet exist:

“v=spf1 mx +include:maildelivery.com.au ?all”

If you already have an SPF record, please add the following text to this record:

“+include:maildelivery.com.au”

We suggest leaving the record in place until you have tested it and are satisfied that all mail servers (including your ISPs or your internal mail server) that you send from are listed in the SPF record. After this time you may then like to change the “?all” component to “-all”.

Please note:

The SPF project‘s website has a tools page that can be used to generate SPF records and validate/test them.

Please ask a grown up to help you…