How to Add an SPF Record to GoDaddy in Minutes
Published in
How To
•
May 3, 2025
Tired of your emails landing in the spam folder?
It could be that your domain doesn’t have an SPF record set up.
SPF makes your emails more secure and boosts your open rates, potentially resulting in more revenue for your business.
Is GoDaddy your domain provider? We’ll show you how to add an SPF to GoDaddy in a matter of minutes. ⬇️
What’s SPF Anyway?
SPF is an email authentication protocol designed to combat email spoofing.
Email spoofing makes a message look like it’s coming from a trusted person or domain when, in reality, it’s sent by cybercriminals to launch a phishing attack.
SPF combats this through an SPF record, which is a DNS TXT record. In this record, you can specify which servers you authorize to send on your domain’s behalf.
If an email claims to be coming from your domain, receiving servers can check your domain’s SPF record to see if the sending server is authorized to send email from your domain.
When a receiving server runs the SPF check and the record is configured correctly, there are only two possible scenarios:
The sending server appears in the SPF record because you authorized it to send emails through your domain. In this case, the email will get delivered normally.
The sending server is not in the SPF record, meaning the email will fail SPF authentication. As a result, the email may be sent to spam or rejected outright.
Why set up an SPF record for your domain?
The best part about implementing an SPF record is that it can increase your open rates and, thus, revenue.
SPF-authenticated emails are more trustworthy in the eyes of internet service providers. This extra layer of trust gives your emails better inbox placement.
The result?
More people will actually read your emails, potentially leading to more sales for your business.
What does an SPF record look like?
Typically, you’d add your email service provider's sending server to the SPF record.
For example, if you use the Gmail/Google Workspace interface to send emails on your domain’s behalf, your SPF record would look something like this:
Can you have multiple SPF records?
No, having multiple SPF records can lead to errors when authenticating emails.
The good news is that you can add more sending servers to your SPF record. All you have to do is add extra includes to the record, like this:
Steps to Setting up Your SPF Record on GoDaddy
You can add an SPF record to GoDaddy in three main steps:
Check if your domain has an existing SPF record to avoid having multiple records
Add your SPF record to your domain’s DNS records on GoDaddy
Validate your SPF record
Each of these global steps has some individual steps to take care of. Don’t worry, except for step 3, which involves some waiting, you can be done setting it all up in a matter of minutes.
Step 1: Check for an existing SPF record on GoDaddy
As you cannot have multiple SPF records, it’s essential you check your domain’s existing DNS records first.
➡️ Go to your GoDaddy account dashboard
➡️ Click on My Products
➡️ Find your domain
➡️ Click on Manage DNS
➡️ On the DNS Management page, look for a record that starts with “v=spf1”. If you see such a record, it means that there’s already an SPF record set up for your domain
➡️ To add additional servers (or IPs) to your record, simply add more Includes to the record. Here’s another example of an SPF record with multiple sending servers:
Step 2: Add an SPF record to GoDaddy
If your domain does not have an SPF set up yet, here are the steps to quickly do so on GoDaddy:
➡️ Go to your GoDaddy account dashboard
➡️ Click on My Products
➡️ Find your domain
➡️ Click on Manage DNS
➡️ Click the Add button
➡️ Choose TXT as the record’s Type
➡️ Put @ in the Name field.
➡️ Now add your SPF record to the Value field. For example, if you’re using Office 365 (Outlook) as your email service provider, the SPF record will look like this:
➡️ Save your SPF record
Step 3: Validate your SPF record
After saving your SPF record, it won’t be active immediately.
Instead, it can take up to 72 hours for the DNS changes to propagate.
But at RogerRoger, we like good news more than anything, so we’re happy to tell you your record will likely become active in a few hours.
How do you know the record is working?
Use MXToolbox to validate it. Just enter your domain and select the SPF Record Lookup option.
Boost Your Chances of Reaching the Inbox Even More
Setting up an SPF on GoDaddy will help boost your open rates.
But SPF alone is not enough. You’ll also have to implement other email authentication methods like DKIM and DMARC.
These security protocols can further increase your emails’ security and thus your open rates and bottom line.
Together, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC form a powerful trio that protects your brand and improves email deliverability.
Implementing all three gives your emails the best possible chance of reaching the inbox and closing the sale.
