How can I protect my domain from being spoofed and blacklisted?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Sendinblue answers that signing up for feedback loops with major ISPs allows you to receive notifications when recipients mark your emails as spam. Addressing these complaints promptly helps maintain a good sender reputation.
Email marketer from ReturnPath shares that encouraging recipients to add your sending address to their address book or whitelist your domain can improve deliverability. Whitelisting signals to ISPs that recipients trust your emails.
Email marketer from Litmus recommends regularly checking if your domain or IP address is listed on any email blocklists. Promptly addressing any listings is crucial for maintaining deliverability.
Email marketer from Mailchimp shares that setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are crucial steps to authenticate your emails. This helps improve deliverability and prevents malicious actors from using your domain for phishing or spoofing attacks.
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that implementing BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) can help display your brand logo in recipients' inboxes, enhancing trust and brand recognition. BIMI requires strong authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Email marketer from Webmaster World Forums recommends practicing good email list hygiene. Regularly removing inactive or invalid email addresses reduces bounce rates and helps prevent your domain from being associated with spam.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that the difference between SPF `~all` and `-all` is minimal with major providers, both essentially indicating SPF failure. He recommends implementing DMARC in monitoring mode to observe mail flow, authenticate legitimate servers, identify spoofing attempts, and gradually enforce DMARC policy.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that in addition to SPF, DKIM and DMARC, it is important to monitor your domain for unauthorized use. Regularly check authentication reports and consider using a brand protection service to identify and address potential spoofing attempts.
Email marketer from SparkPost explains that maintaining a good sender reputation is essential for email deliverability. Sending consistent, high-quality content, avoiding spam traps, and promptly handling bounces and complaints can help build and maintain a positive reputation.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise responds that continuously monitoring your sender reputation is crucial for identifying and addressing any potential issues that could lead to blacklisting. This includes tracking metrics like bounce rates, spam complaints, and blocklist listings.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that perfect SPF records are ineffective if a domain is used in links within the message body. Furthermore, she points out that the 5322.from address can use the target's domain while the SPF authenticated string uses the sender's domain, diminishing SPF's overall effectiveness, calling it a mere tick box item.
Expert from Spamresource explains that implementing and enforcing a DMARC policy is critical. Setting the policy to 'reject' or 'quarantine' instructs receiving mail servers to block or isolate emails that fail authentication, providing strong protection against domain spoofing.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that using `~spf` vs `-spf` makes a difference primarily with smaller providers, who may reject mail with SPF failures when `-spf` is used. He recommends using `~all` to avoid issues with legitimate mail being discarded.
Expert from Email Geeks responds that spoofing a domain won't necessarily lead to blacklisting. He suggests understanding the actual business concerns and problems before focusing solely on technical configurations. A sensible authentication posture depends on the business details, audience, mail flows, budget, and trade-offs.
What the documentation says6Technical articles
Documentation from Cloudflare explains that DKIM adds a digital signature to outgoing emails, which receiving servers can use to verify the message's authenticity. Implementing DKIM involves generating a public/private key pair, adding the public key to your DNS records, and configuring your mail server to sign outgoing messages with the private key.
Documentation from RFC 7208 defines the technical standard for SPF (Sender Policy Framework), outlining how domain owners can specify authorized sending mail servers to prevent email spoofing.
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC policies dictate how receiving mail servers should handle emails that fail authentication checks. Starting with a policy of 'none' (p=none) allows you to monitor email flow without impacting deliverability, while 'quarantine' (p=quarantine) and 'reject' (p=reject) policies provide stronger protection against spoofing.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that DMARC helps prevent spoofing and phishing. They recommend publishing a DMARC record in your DNS to tell receiving mail servers what to do with messages that fail authentication checks (SPF or DKIM).
Documentation from RFC 6376 explains the technical specifications of DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), detailing how digital signatures are created and verified to ensure email authenticity.
Documentation from Microsoft Learn explains that SPF records help prevent spoofing by specifying which mail servers are authorized to send email on behalf of your domain. Creating an SPF record involves identifying all legitimate sending sources and including them in the SPF record.