Check your website email delivery

Why your website email can be marked as spam?

It is fraustating that you find out your website register email does not reach the registering user. If you face with that, it does not mean that you have spammed but strict email requirements caused your email being blacklisted. To understand what has happened, you need to know a few technical terms.

Tools to check if your website domain reputation to send emails

There are several tools for checking whether your website domain is marked as spam.

Spamhaus is one of the tools that can search for your domain and check its validity.

https://www.spamhaus.org/lookup/

Parameters to check

SPF: It stands for "Sender Policy Framework". It specifies which IPs are eligible for servers to send email on behalf of this domain. It's an email authentication protocol designed to prevent email spoofing and phishing by verifying that incoming emails actually come from authorized servers for a given domain.

DKIM: It stands for "Domain Keys Identified Mail" and is a cryptographic email authentication method that adds a digital signature to the email header. This signature is verified by the recipient's email server to confirm that the email was sent from an authorized source and hasn't been tampered with during transit.

DMARC: It stands for "Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance". A DMARC policy enables a sender's domain to show that their emails are shielded by SPF and/or DKIM, and guides a recipient on actions if these authentication methods fail, like rejecting or quarantining the message. It can also detail how a recipient informs the sender's domain regarding messages that succeed or fail authentication.

BIMI: It stands for "Brand Indicators for Message Identification" and is an email authentication and brand recognition standard. It allows brands to display their logos alongside authenticated emails in supported email clients. The primary goals of BIMI are to enhance email security, improve brand visibility, and provide a more trustworthy email experience for recipients. While not a direct factor in email delivery, BIMI can improve brand recognition and trust by displaying authenticated logos next to emails in supported email clients. This enhancement can indirectly impact user engagement and email open rates. For instance, email providers might prioritize emails with BIMI records in certain ways within their systems or offer additional features tied to BIMI authentication.

SPF

SPF is adjusted on your website control panel. It is a TXT on your DNS record.

An example of SPF looks like this:

This says that for the specified domain, the servers with IP within the range of 192.0.2.0 to 192.0.2.255 as well as the specific IP 198.51.100.123 are the only servers that can send an email for this domain.

There are online tools to test your SPF record, such as:

• https://easydmarc.com/tools/spf-lookup

• https://www.spf-record.com/

• https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx

DKIM

DKIM is also a TXT DNS record for your email signatures.

An example of DKIM might look like this:

where the acceptable algorithm is sha256, the key type is rsa and p is the public key.

When adding a DNS record for DKIM the host name might not look like what you expect. For example, for no-reply@example.com, the domain name might look like mail._domainkey.example.com rather than example.com.

You can find DKIM generators online:

• https://easydmarc.com/tools/dkim-record-generator

as well as DKIM validators:

• https://www.site24x7.com/tools/dkim-validator.html

• https://mxtoolbox.com/dkim.aspx

• https://dmarcian.com/dkim-inspector/

DMARC

DMARC is another TXT DNS record on your website. An example of DMARC for example.com is a TXT DNS record with hostname of _dmarc.example.com and the value of

where rua indicates which email address to aggregate reports (summaries) and ruf indicates the forensic reports (failed DMARC checks).

Always make sure when you copy/paste a DMARC or other records, it does not include extra whitespace at the beginning.

If you need an external email for DMARC, I know this:

• https://app.easydmarc.com/domains/me

If you know a better service, please leave it in the comment.

Online tools to generate DMARC:

• https://dmarcian.com/dmarc-record-wizard/

Online tools to check your DMARC:

• https://dmarcian.com/dmarc-inspector/

• https://mxtoolbox.com/dmarc.aspx

BIMI

BIMI allows to to set an SVG icon as a logo to be displayed alongside authenticated emails.

An example of BIMI for example.com is a TXT with name _bimi.example.com and value of

However, it would be better if this record included VMC certificate! Try having it for your website.

There are online tools for generating BIMI:

• https://powerdmarc.com/bimi-record-generator/

• https://bimigroup.org/bimi-generator/

• https://easydmarc.com/tools/bimi-record-generator

Your BIMI might be verifiable with some delays.

There are online tools to verify your website BIMI:

• https://mxtoolbox.com/bimi.aspx