In short, domain authentication allows servers of the world to know that the email address you use to send emails is really yours. For you, it means that your email is less likely to bounce or end up in your readers' spam boxes. Though the one-time setup can be a bit challenging, it’s more than worth setting it up. We’ll show you how!
To verify and authenticate your domain, click on Domains in the dropdown menu and then click on Add domain. Add your business email address that belongs to the domain you want to authenticate to receive the verification email. After you've clicked the link in your inbox, you'll see that the email is verified in your dashboard. You then need to authenticate the domain itself, so the worldwide servers know you are indeed the legitimate owner of the domain.
To start the authentication process, click on Authenticate. You'll see a pop-up with two TXT records.
1. DKIM: Copy the code and add it to your TXT records in your hosting panel
2. SPF: Copy this code too after you've set up the DKIM and add it to your TXT records
In the video tutorial, we'll show you how to add these TXT records in the name.com hosting panel. However, since everyone uses a different hosting service, it might be different for you. A hosting service could be Namecheap, GoDaddy or any company you have used to buy your domain and/or hosting package from.
Please contact the support team of your host to add your personal records. You only need to add these settings once and then your domain will be verified permanently.
In some cases, you need to add a dot “.” at the end of the TXT name, but this depends on your hosting company.
It can take up to 24 hours for the servers to see your updates, so sometimes you need to wait a little for the results to show up.
Once you're all set up it will look like the emails come straight from your server. However, sometimes—depending on the email client, like Gmail—it can happen that it shows that you've sent your email from a third-party email provider like MailerLite. Don't worry about that! By adding the DKIM/SPF records you've done everything you could, there is unfortunately nothing more to improve. Sometimes these email clients are stubborn and just do their own thing :)
For more information, check out our help article about the verification and authentication of your domain.