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 authenticate your domain, you first need to verify it. See our tutorial on how to verify, authenticate and align your domain.
Once your domain has been verified, 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 DNS records.
DKIM: Copy the code and add it to your CNAME records in your hosting panel
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 DNS records in the 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 hosting provider to add your personal records if you are having trouble adding them yourself. 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, authentication, and alignment of your domain.