How to Set Up an SPF Record on OVH - Step-By-Step Instructions

Sick of your emails landing in spam?

Let’s take an important step toward fixing that by setting up an SPF record for your domain.

SPF is an email authentication method that’s no longer optional. If you want your emails to book meetings or generate revenue, you must implement SPF now.

If OVHcloud is your domain provider, we’ll show you how to set up an SPF record on OVH below.

What Does SPF Mean?

SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework.

While SPF may seem complicated, it’s actually quite simple.

An SPF record allows you to specify which sending servers can send email from your domain.

That means that if you use an email service provider to send email, you must add their server(s) to your SPF record.

How does that work in the real world? ⁉️

Let’s say you use Gmail/Google Workspace to send email on your domain’s behalf. In that case, you simply add Google’s sending server to your domain’s SPF record.

Your SPF record would look something like this:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

Here’s what the components in an SPF record mean:

• 💡 The V stands for version. There’s only one version in use currently, so this is always spf1.

• 💡 The include part is where the sending server resides.

• 💡 The All tag at the end of an SPF record defines the result that should be returned when an email fails authentication. In this case (~all), it’s set at soft fail, meaning emails from unauthorized IPs should be accepted but marked as suspicious.

It’s important to note that you cannot have multiple SPF records, as this would cause complications during authentication.

However, you can include multiple sending servers (or IP numbers) in your SPF record. Here’s an SPF record with multiple sending servers:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

Three Reasons Why You Need SPF

1. SPF adds more security to your emails

2. Email service providers reward you for sending more secure emails by giving you better inbox placement. Some providers now outright reject emails coming from domains without SPF records set up.

3. With more eyeballs on your emails, you have a much better chance of closing more deals

Setting Up an SPF Record on OVHcloud in Four Steps

Setting up an OVH SPF record consists of four main steps:

1: ➡️ Get your email service provider (or sending tool)’s SPF record

2: ➡️ Check if your domain has an existing SPF record

3: ➡️ Add the SPF record to OVHcloud

4: ➡️ Validate your SPF record

Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail:

1. Get your email service provider’s SPF record

Before adding the SPF record to OVHcloud, you need to know what the record should look like.

Usually, you can find the required record on your email service provider’s website.

For example, if you use Google/Gmail to send email, your SPF record will likely look like this:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

For other email service providers (or sending tools), check your provider’s website.

2: Check if your domain has an existing SPF record

Since you can't have multiple SPF records, you must first check for an existing record.

Here’s how:

1. ➡️ Log in to your OVHcloud account to go to the Control Panel

2. ➡️ Navigate to My Products and Services

3. ➡️ Hit the See All button

4. ➡️ Click on your domain

5. ➡️ Navigate to the DNS Zone tab

6. ➡️ Check for DNS records starting with v=spf1

7. ➡️ If there’s none, you’re good to continue with the following steps

8. ➡️ If there is, determine what sending servers are in the includes and whether you still need them. If you don't, you can delete the record safely. Just ensure you’re 100% certain of the origin of this record before deleting it.

9. ➡️ If you need to keep this record, you must add an additional include tag to the record (see next steps), unless the same sending server is already in the record.

3: Add the SPF record to OVHcloud

These steps describe how to add an SPF record to OVH:

1. ➡️ Log in to your OVHcloud account to go to the Control Panel

2. ➡️ Navigate to My Products and Services

3. ➡️ Hit the See All button

4. ➡️ Click on your domain

5. ➡️ Navigate to the DNS Zone tab

6. ➡️ Click on the Add an Entry button

7. ➡️ Choose TXT as the record’s Type

8. ➡️ Paste your SPF record in the Target field. Note: OVH does not automatically append your domain to the record, so you must add it yourself. The complete record should then look something like this: yourdomain.com  TXT v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

9. ➡️ If your domain already has an SPF record set up, just add another include tag followed by your ESP’s sending server or IP: yourdomain.com  TXT v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:sendingserver2.net ~all *

10. ➡️ Save your record

*Don’t add too many include tags to your SPF record. SPF has a lookup limit of 10. Exceeding that can cause complications during authentication.

4: Validate Your SPF Record

Your SPF record may now be set up correctly.

However, the only way to know for sure is to wait.

Why?

DNS changes can take up to 72 hours to propagate.

But don’t worry, typically your SPF record becomes active in a few hours.

Even better, you don’t have to guess its status. Instead, you can use a tool like MXToolbox to validate your record.

Enter your domain and select the SPF Record Lookup option:

Boost Your Open Rates Even More

SPF is part of a trio of email authentication protocols that work together.

Apart from SPF, the other essential email authentication methods are DKIM and DMARC.

These protocols validate different aspects of your emails to prove they're authentic. Together, they increase your emails’ security and thus get you more eyeballs on your sales emails.

Set up all three to optimize your chances of landing in the inbox.