Email domain verification (SPF & DKIM)Updated 9 days ago
What is email domain verification?
Domain verification is a way for your to claim ownership over your email domain, when using 3rd party services to send and receive emails using your domain.
The ownership verification allows you to ensure maximum deliverability over your emails, as well as prevent misuse of your email domain.
SPF and DKIM are the main sources used for setting up domain verification for email forwarding integrations.
The main reason to set up domain verification is to have improved email deliverability. So, if you are experiencing a problem where your messages sent via email forwarding are not being received in your customers' main inbox, for example they are being sent to spam/trash, the first course of action would be to set up your SPF and DKIM.
Setting up DKIM and SPF
Before proceeding, we should understand that, as per our newest updates, we have two ways that a domain can be verified -- the old and the new way.
Not to worry! Your Gorgias account will only be linked to one of these, so you will always know whether to follow the old verification steps, or the new verification steps.
The simplest way to know which one to do is to check in your Settings→ Email integration you are looking to verify → Domain verification, whether you have 2 values listed, or 3. More on that below.
Old verification - 2 Values
To ensure that you are supposed to follow the 2-values instructions, first we need to make sure that's correct.
Navigate to your Settings →Channels→ Email integrations, and choose the integration you are looking to verify.
Navigate to your "Domain verification" tab, and click on "add domain":
From there, you will be taken to the Domain verification screen, where you will be shown values you need to add to your DNS records.
If there's only 2 values to be added, you are following the old instructions setup. However, if there's 3, please navigate to the New instructions below.
To proceed with this type of verification, you will first want to make sure that you have admin access to your integrations page in your account, and also make sure that you have access to your domain registrar.
As mentioned above, once a key has been generated, you will be shown two entries. These must be entered into your domain registrar.
Open your domain registrar, and add a new entry with the following details:
| Type | TXT |
| Host | gorgias.gorgias.io (as seen above) |
| TXT value | v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all (as seen above) |
In the above example we used GoDaddy as the domain registrar, but rest assured that all other domain registrars are very similar and that the procedure would remain the same regardless of the domain registrar that you are using.
The process is different for different domain registrar, but here are the instructions for several major ones:
Once both of these options are added to your domain registrar, you can proceed to wait for up to 72 hours for the domain verification to be completed. SPF should kick in sooner than DKIM, however it is highly advised not to change anything if all the entries have been entered correctly and just wait for the 72-hour mark to pass.
New verification - 3 Values
To ensure that you are supposed to be using the 3-value verification steps, we need to make sure that is correct.
Navigate to your Settings →Channels→ Email integrations, and choose the integration you are looking to verify.
Navigate to your "Domain verification" tab, and this is what you should be seeing:
If you are seeing the same information as in the screenshot above, you should indeed be using the 3-value verification method. However, if not, please revert back to the old verification steps.
Now, before we proceed, let's understand the difference between "Single Sender Verification", and "Domain Verification".
Single Sender Verification
Single Sender Verification is recommended for testing purposes, as well as if you are using only one email address on your domain in Gorgias.
For example, let's say your domain is domain.com. You decide to integrate [email protected] into Gorgias, and this is the only email address you will be using with Gorgias - in that case, you can proceed with Single Sender Verification, however, if you don't complete the full verification, you will still be prone to deliverability issues. It's still strongly recommended to complete the Full Domain Verification.
If neither Single Sender or Domain Verification have been completed, you will not be able to reply to emails. An error message will be displayed, notifying you to verify your domain:
To proceed, simply click on "Verify Single Sender", and you will be prompted to fill out a form with your Company details. After you do, you will receive a verification email in your inbox.
After the verification is complete, that will also be shown in the verification screen as well, where you will see a green tick sign saying "Verified" under the single sender tab.
If you are looking to integrate multiple email addresses from the same domain, i.e. [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected], or verify your domain to ensure maximum deliverability of your emails, you will need to go through with the full Domain Verification.
Domain Verification
If you are proceeding with the Domain Verification rather than Single Sender Verification, please click on the button "Verify Domain".
After a key has been generated, you will be shown your values (there will be three of them):
You will need to add these values to your DNS records as shown above, to proceed further with the Domain Verification, as explained above.
After the values have been added correctly, it can take up to 72 hours for the domain to be verified.
When the verification is completed, you will be shown a green tick under "Domain Verification" indicating that the Domain has been verified.
Any further questions or troubles concerning SPF or DKIM? Feel free to reach out to our Support Team anytime via our live chat or email at [email protected] Happy to help!