Stop your email going to spam

What the three records do

• SPF lists the servers allowed to send mail for your domain.
• DKIM adds a signature to each message so the receiver can tell it wasn't changed or forged.
• DMARC tells receivers what to do with mail that fails those checks, and where to send reports.

Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo all check these. Without them, even ordinary replies can be filtered as spam.

Step 1: Check SPF and DKIM

1. In cPanel, open Email Deliverability.
2. Find your domain in the list. A green tick means its records are valid.
3. If you see a warning, click Repair next to it, then Repair again to confirm. cPanel writes the correct SPF and DKIM records for you.

Repair only works when your domain uses Dredge's nameservers (see Connect a domain). If your DNS is managed somewhere else, click Manage instead. cPanel shows the exact records to copy into your DNS provider.

Step 2: Add a DMARC record

cPanel doesn't create DMARC for you, so add it in the Zone Editor (Manage DNS records explains the screen):

1. In cPanel, open Zone Editor and click Manage next to your domain.
2. Click Add Record and choose TXT.
3. For Name, enter _dmarc.yourdomain.com.
4. For Record, enter:

   v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourdomain.com

5. Click Save Record.

p=none only monitors and changes nothing about delivery. Once the reports show your mail passing for a few weeks, you can tighten it to p=quarantine.

Step 3: Test it

Send a message from your domain to a Gmail address. In Gmail, open it, click the three dots, and choose Show original. You want to see PASS next to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Still landing in spam?

• Newsletters and bulk mail: send these through a dedicated newsletter service, not your hosting mailbox. Bulk sends from a shared server hurt delivery for everyone.
• Mail sent by WordPress: contact forms that send "from" a visitor's address fail SPF. Set the form to send from an address on your own domain and put the visitor's address in Reply-To.
• New domain: brand-new domains have no sending reputation yet. Delivery usually improves over the first few weeks of normal use.

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