What this check inspects
Shipwork resolves the SPF record in the root TXT records, the DMARC record at _dmarc, and the MX records for the domain. It reports no SPF as a warning, more than one SPF as an error, and describes the SPF qualifier. For DMARC it reports absence as a warning, a missing policy as a warning, and the policy itself. It notes that DKIM cannot be checked without knowing the selector.
What a failure means
Two SPF records is an error: the specification allows only one, and receivers may ignore all of them, which is worse than a single permissive record. A missing SPF or DMARC is a warning that deliverability depends on luck. A DMARC policy of none is informational, monitoring without enforcement.
How to fix it
- Keep exactly one SPF record. Merge providers into one record rather than adding a second.
- End SPF with -all once you have listed every sender, or ~all while you are still discovering them.
- Publish a DMARC record, start at p=none to collect reports, then move to quarantine and reject.
- Set up DKIM with your email provider and rotate the selector, since SPF and DMARC alone do not sign the message.
A typical failure, worked through
The setupA store adds a new newsletter provider and pastes that provider SPF record into DNS, without removing the old one. The domain now has two v=spf1 records.
What the check reportsThe check reports two SPF records as an error and explains that receivers may treat both as invalid. Order email becomes unreliable without any visible change on the site.
The pointSPF is one record, not a list of records. Adding a provider means editing the existing record, not adding a line.