IT folks, what is DKIM, DMARC and SPF? And how does DNS play into this?
In: Technology
As the owner of a domain name (eg. Google.com) you need to direct traffic accordingly when someone visits your website. This is done with DNS records. Simple pieces of text that are listed with your domain name and visible to anyone.
There are different types of records. For example:
“Hey my website is over here” (A record)
Or, “Looking to send me an email, right this way!” (MX records).
There are also various types of notices and information you can put in your DNS records which don’t necessarily point anywhere, but are used as a way to prove that something is legit.
These are things like TXT records, SPF, and DMARC records (there are quite a few different conventions for proving email is legit).
So for your email question …
“Hey, if you received an email from us but the sender didn’t have these records in their DNS, it wasn’t us and the message is probably spam or someone is trying to trick you!”
Without these records, your email will still be sent, but many companies email systems have strict rules to prevent spam, and they will require some, or all of the verification methods to be present before they will allow your email through.
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