Cut down on spoofed emails with DKIM

Have you found your inbox filled with bounce-backs and angry messages, all from people you don’t remember emailing? And have you looked at the emails and realised they’re coming from an email address you haven’t set up?

Spammers can set up their servers to spoof emails from your domain name. This gives them an easy way to send a lot of emails without being traced back to them. Luckily, there’s something you can do to stop them — DKIM records.

What’s DKIM?

DKIM is short for DomainKeys Identified Email, an email authentication method designed to detect forged sender addresses.

With this method, each email message has a digital signature in the headers. Mail servers can validate that signature using the public cryptographic key included in the DNS records for the domain.

Once you have DKIM set up, every email you send out will have a special signature that will be checked by your recipient’s mail server. If the signature matches up with the TXT record in your DNS records, your email gets through to your recipient. If not, it doesn’t go through.

Why should I use it?

DKIM helps ensure your emails are seen as the real deal by other mail servers. This is really helpful if you’ve ever had problems with your emails not getting through, your domain being used for spoofed email addresses or even phishing attempts based on your domain.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean you’ll get less spam. But the more people who set up DKIM for their domains means more filters will pick up more spam.

How do I set it up?

If you have your DNS records with us, it’s easy to set up your DKIM record.

Log into your Eco Web Hosting Control Panel and go to “Manage Hosting”.

Go to the Control Panel for the site.

In the Control Panel, click the “DomainKeys” icon under “Email”.

Screenshot of the Email panel in the Hosting Control Panel, with the DomainKeys icon circled

On the “Add DKIM Signature” page, select the domain you want to use, and enter whatever you want to use as the Selector. This can be a specific value, a name, anything — it’s just the way your record is identified in your files.

Click “Add Signature”.

Screenshot of the Add DKIM Signature page in the Hosting Control Panel, showing where you select the Domain and enter in the Selector.

Our system automatically creates the correct TXT record and adds it to your DNS records. Wait a bit for your DNS records to update, and then all your emails will be using DKIM.

If your DNS records are hosted elsewhere, check with your provider to see whether or not DKIM is possible for your domain.

Where can I learn more?

dkim.org has plenty of information, including technical documentation. Or if you have any questions about your domain specifically, talk to our Support Team!