How to Add an SPF Record in Namecheap to Boost Email Deliverability

Struggling with emails landing in spam?

Setting up an SPF record will improve your inbox placement.

And the more people see your cold emails, the more revenue you can drive.

However, setting up SPF can feel confusing if you're unsure where to start.

If Namecheap is your domain provider, don’t worry. We’ll show you how easy it is to add an SPF record in Namecheap.

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How to Add an SPF Record to Namecheap

1. Figure out what SPF record you must add to Namecheap
2. Check if your domain has an existing SPF record
3. Add the SPF record to Namecheap
4. Validate the SPF record

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Step 1: Figure out what SPF record you must add to Namecheap

An SPF record lets you decide what sending servers can send from your domain.

Emails that do not come from authorized servers will fail SPF authentication and likely get sent to spam or not delivered at all.

If you use an email provider, like Google Workspace, to send from your domain, you must add their sending servers to your SPF record.

If you use your hosting company’s mail servers, their sending servers must appear on your SPF record.

So, the first step is figuring out what SPF record you need to add to Namecheap.

For popular email providers, here’s Google Workspace’s SPF page and Office 365 SPF info. You’ll find the exact SPF records you need there.

Contact your hosting provider if you use their email servers.

If you use a cold email tool’s sending server, ask them for the correct SPF record.

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

Can a domain have multiple SPF records?

The answer is no.

Multiple SPF records will cause complications during authentication, ruining the potential deliverability boost you could gain.

So then it becomes essential to check if your domain has an existing SPF record set up.

Now, you may be asking:

How do I find my SPF record?

Here’s how you do it on Namecheap:

• Step 1: log in to your Namecheap account
• Step 2: Click on Domain list
• Step 3: Find your domain and click on the Manage button
• Step 4: Go to Advanced DNS
• Step 5: Look for a TXT record containing the following tag: v=spf1.
• If you found an SPF record, see if the sending server of your email or hosting provider is in the record. Compare their record’s include or ip4/6 tags with your existing record. These tags hold the domain or IP number of the authorized sending servers. If their server(s) is already in the record, all you have to do now is validate your record. We’ll show you how to do that in a later section.
• If you found an SPF record but the required sending server(s) is not in it, you’ll have to modify the record to include it. This is easier than it sounds. Just add the include and/or ip4/ip6 tags of your email provider's record to your existing SPF record. Here’s an example of an SPF record with multiple includes: v=spf1 include:somesendingserver.net include:_spf.google.com ~all

Note: SPF has a DNS lookup limit of ten. Ensure you remove unnecessary include and ip4/6 tags.

Important: Always copy or take a screenshot of your current SPF records before editing. Mistakes can destroy your email deliverability.

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Step 3: Add the SPF record to Namecheap

Here’s how to add a new SPF record in Namecheap:

• Step 1: Log in to Namecheap
• Step 2: Click on Domain list
• Step 3: Select your domain by clicking on the Manage button
• Step 4: Navigate to Advanced DNS
• Step 5: Click Add new record
• Step 6: For the record's Type, choose TXT
• Step 7: Put @ in the Host field (for setting up an SPF record on the root domain)
• Step 8: Add the SPF record to the Value field. If Google Workspace is your email provider, it will look like this:  v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all
• Step 9: Leave the TTL on automatic. TTL means Time To Live. It’s the time in seconds the server should cache your SPF record.
• Step 10: Click the checkmark to save your record

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Here’s a Namecheap SPF record example. This is what it would like in Namecheap's DNS management.

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Step 4: Validate the SPF record

So far, so good…

You saved your SPF record and expect to have more people read your emails immediately.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

After executing DNS changes like the one you just implemented, your record can take up to three days to become active.

But don’t worry! Typically, your SPF record will propagate in a few hours.

You can use Mailivery, a cold email deliverability tool, to check DNS status.

If the status indicator next to SPF turns green, you’re good to go!

Status indicator not turning green?

The syntax of an SPF record needs to be exact. If it isn’t, it won’t work.

Use Mailivery’s free SPF Syntax checker below to ensure the syntax of your SPF record is correct:

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What is SPF?

In case you didn’t know:

SPF is short for Sender Policy Framework, a protocol that helps prevent email spoofing.

It allows you to decide what email servers can send from your domain.

With a correctly set up SPF record, it’s harder for criminals to pretend to send from your domain without failing SPF authentication.

Email service providers appreciate this extra security layer and reward you with better inbox placement.

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SPF Dissected

Let’s take an SPF record example and quickly explain what it all means:

v=spf1 include:sendingserver.com ~all

• The v tag holds the SPF version. There’s only one version in widespread use at the moment, so it’s always: v=spf1
• The include mechanism authorizes the sending server to send emails from your domain. Alternatively, an ip4 or ip6 tag can be used to authorize the ip number of a sending server.
• The all mechanism determines the result to return when an email fails authentication. -all means hard fail and it suggests rejecting emails that fail authentication. What really happens to these emails also depends on server configuration and your DMARC policy. (DMARC is another important email authentication protocol.) For testing purposes (when setting up your SPF), ~all is the preferred setting. ~all  means soft fail and will mark the email as suspicious, but still allow it through in most cases.

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Is SPF Alone Enough to Boost Email Deliverability?

While SPF alone will give your open rates a boost, you also need to set up two other email authentication protocols:

• DKIM - Makes it harder for criminals to tamper with emails during transit
• DMARC - Determines what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM authentication

Then, there’s email warm-up. The practice of gradually increasing your sending volume to build a sender reputation.

Why is email warm-up necessary?

Simple: If you start sending hundreds of daily emails out of the blue, email service providers will think you’re a spammer.

Instead, build up your sending volume over time, generate real replies, and work to get any emails stuck in spam moved to the inbox.

Doing all this manually is a heck of a job and not scalable.

That’s why email warm-up services like Mailivery exist. Mailivery does all the heavy lifting so you can concentrate on higher value tasks.

The best part?

With Mailivery, you can warm up an unlimited number of mailboxes.

Start your free 7-day trial today.

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Need Help Setting Up SPF on Another Domain Provider?

We also have guides on:

• How to set up an SPF record on GoDaddy
• How to add an SPF record to Cloudflare‍
• How to configure an SPF record on OVH
• How to set up SPF on Gandi DNS management

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