SPF is a DNS record that lists which mail servers are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. Publish exactly one SPF record naming your real mail providers, and nothing else. Two SPF records, or none, both weaken your email's deliverability.
Why it matters
Without SPF, receiving mail servers have no way to check that an email claiming to be from your domain actually came from a server you control. That makes it easier to spoof your domain, and it makes mailbox providers more likely to send your genuine mail to spam.
SPF also feeds directly into DMARC alignment. A missing or broken SPF record can cause an otherwise correct DMARC policy to fail mail that should have passed.
How AuditCrow checks this
AuditCrow performs a DNS TXT lookup for the domain and checks for exactly one record starting `v=spf1`. More than one SPF record, or none, is flagged.
How to fix it
- 1Check your domain's DNS for a TXT record starting `v=spf1`, using AuditCrow's own SPF checker or any public DNS lookup tool.
- 2If none exists, add one listing every service that sends mail as your domain: your web host, your email provider, and any marketing or invoicing tool that sends on your behalf. Each provider publishes the exact `include:` value to add.
- 3If more than one exists, merge them into a single record. Having two SPF records is invalid and most receivers treat it as a failure, even if each one individually looks fine.
- 4SPF has a hard limit of 10 DNS lookups. A record with many `include:` statements from multiple third-party tools can quietly exceed this and start failing. If you use several marketing and email tools, check the total lookup count rather than just the record's presence.
- 5This is a DNS change, made wherever your domain's nameservers are managed (your registrar or hosting provider), not a change to the website itself.
Related checks
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