Email Deliverability – SPF and DomainKeys

Beginning in late March of 2010, our shared servers are being upgraded to the latest version of cPanel, which now allows users to create their own SPF records and Domain Keys. SPF and Domain Keys are tools used by many mail servers in an effort to combat spam, so if you’re having an issue with your email being bounced back or arriving in the junk/spam folders of your recipients, it is suggested to enable these settings. Please keep in mind that as these are DNS settings, they may take up to 24 hours or more before they begin to take effect.

Important! cPanel will show the following error when setting up your DKIM and SPF records: Warning: cPanel is unable to verify that this server is an authoritative nameserver for your-domain.com [?]. This is a known bug within cPanel and can be disregarded. cPanel checks the local server for DNS in cPanel causing this error. As long as you can check them at the following link you DNS should work fine:

About Domain Keys and SPF Records

email deliverability in cPanel

Domain Keys

Domain Keys is an e-mail authentication system that allows for incoming mail to be checked against the server it was sent from to verify that the mail has not been modified. This ensures that messages are actually coming from the listed sender and allows abusive messages to be tracked with more ease.

SPF

SPF will specify which machines are authorized to send email from your domain(s). This means that only mail sent through this server will appear as valid mail from your domain(s) when the SPF records are checked.

Additional Info

How to Implement Domain Keys and SPF Records

While current versions of cPanel list these features under Email Deliverability, you may see references to an Email Authentication section, which is how the feature was described in older versions of cPanel.

SPF Records and Domain Keys can be set within the “Email Deliverability” section of your cPanel.

If you need further assistance, or, if you do not have the “Email Deliverability” icon in your cPanel, please use the ticket portal in AMP to submit a ticket.

4 thoughts on “Email Deliverability – SPF and DomainKeys

    1. You’re right OrcMan, and thanks for pointing it out. Newer versions of cPanel list it under Email Deliverability rather than Email Authentication. I’ll get this one updated for clarity. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

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