If mail you send lands in recipients’ spam folders, authentication records are almost always the cause.
The three records that matter
- SPF lists which servers may send mail for your domain.
- DKIM cryptographically signs your messages so recipients can verify they were not altered.
- DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when SPF or DKIM fails, and where to send reports.
Enabling SPF and DKIM
- In cPanel, open Email → Email Deliverability.
- Any domain with a problem shows an issue against it. Click Repair.
- cPanel installs the correct SPF and DKIM records automatically when your domain uses our nameservers.
If your DNS is hosted elsewhere — for example at Cloudflare — cPanel shows the exact records to copy across manually.
Adding DMARC
Create a TXT record on _dmarc.yourdomain.com. Start in monitoring mode:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com
After a few weeks of clean reports, tighten it to p=quarantine and later p=reject.
Other things that trigger spam filters
- Sending bulk mail from a shared hosting mailbox — use a proper email service for newsletters
- A "From" address that does not match the sending domain
- All-image emails, misleading subject lines, and link shorteners
- A compromised mailbox sending spam — change passwords immediately if you suspect this
Test your setup
Send a message to a testing service such as mail-tester.com and act on the score it reports. Then check that your domain and server IP are not listed on major blocklists.
