SPF, DKIM and DMARC in plain words
Updated Sep 2026 · 8 min readWhy your emails land in spam and the three records that fix it.
What a receiver does with one message
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SPF: who may send
harborgoods.com. TXT "v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:sendgrid.net ~all"DKIM: is the message untouched
google._domainkey.harborgoods.com. TXT "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIIBIjANBgkqh…"DMARC: what to do on failure
_dmarc.harborgoods.com. TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]; fo=1"Reading a DMARC report
Rolling out DMARC without losing email
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Check your records yourself
dig +short TXT harborgoods.com | grep spf1
dig +short TXT google._domainkey.harborgoods.com
dig +short TXT _dmarc.harborgoods.com
dig +short MX harborgoods.comForwarding, mailing lists and subdomains
Protect the domains that never send
parked-brand.com. TXT "v=spf1 -all"
_dmarc.parked-brand.com. TXT "v=DMARC1; p=reject"
parked-brand.com. MX 0 .