Email authentication checker - Validate your technical setup

Successful email outreach starts with having the basics right.

Email authentication may not be the sexiest aspect of outreach, but it is the foundation upon which success is built.

But how do you know your technical setup is in order?

Use our technical setup checker below.

What is email authentication? 👨‍🏫

Email authentication aims to prevent cybercrime through email.

Before email authentication, it was easy to pretend to be sending from a trusted domain when you really weren’t. Additionally, tampering with an email’s content during transit was possible.

Both these acts were used to scam people.

To combat this problem, big email senders and receivers, like Google and Yahoo, took the initiative in (further) developing three main email authentication protocols: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

In short:

• SPF allows you to specify which servers can send emails through your domain. If an email claims to be coming from your domain but is sent through a server that’s not in your domain’s SPF record, it will fail authentication.
• DKIM checks if an email’s content has been tampered with during transit. If the email’s content has indeed changed, authentication will fail.
• With DMARC, you can decide what to do with emails that fail authentication: 1. let them pass normally. 2. Send them to the spam folder. 3. Reject them altogether, i.e., they don’t get delivered at all.

Nowadays, thanks to email authentication, it’s much harder to commit cybercrimes through email.

Technical setup checker tool 🛠️

The main feature of our technical setup checker is that it checks if your email authentication is in order.

Try our tool below by entering your (sending) domain and clicking “Check domain setup.”

Dissecting the results

The results are relatively easy to understand.

For this example, the email authentication records are fine. However, the domain was found to be on a blacklist, which is also essential to know.

If any email authentication records are not in order, set them up correctly and wait a day or so before rerunning the email authentication checker.

Email authentication checker FAQ ⁉️

How often can I use the email authentication checker?

You can use it as much as you like. However, DNS propagation typically takes 2-48 hours.

After setting up your email authentication records, it’s best to wait a few hours before you check.

Why does email authentication matter?

Email authentication helps prevent cybercrimes. Additionally, with all your email authentication records in place, you’ll enjoy better open rates.

Where can I find more information on the most common email authentication protocols?

We’ve published comprehensive guides on SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.