An SPF record, as defined in RFC 7208, is a Type-TXT resource record, as used by Domain Name System (DNS). SPF records are used in the context of email messaging to prevent sender address forgery. The sender address is forged when an unauthorized system on a network, such as a computer that has been hacked and is acting like a zombie computer, or a misconfigured system that is attempting to generate more email than intended, is used to send an email message that appears to come from the authorized domain.

Steps to Configure SPF for HostGator 

In order to include HostGator as your authorized sending source, you need to create an SPF record for HostGator. Follow the steps below to do so: 

• You can use our free SPF record generator to instantly generate an SPF record. 

• Choose if you want to allow servers listed as MX to send emails for your domain

• Choose if you want to allow the current IP address of the domain to send emails for this domain

• Fill in the IP addresses authorized to send emails from your domain

• Add any other server hostnames or domains that may deliver or relay mail for your domain

• Choose your SPF policy mode or the level of austerity you need. You can choose from the following mode options: 

 Fail (non-compliant emails will be rejected)

Soft-fail (Non-compliant emails will be accepted but marked)

Neutral (Mails will probably be accepted)

• Click on Generate SPF Record to instantly create your record

Note: HostGator makes use of an include mechanism during SPF setup. While newly creating an SPF record for Hostgator to publish in your domain’s DNS, it will look something like this: 

v=spf1 include:websitewelcome.com -all

In case you have a pre-existing SPF record in your DNS and you just need to modify it to include Hostgator, then you can simply publish the following: 

v=spf1 mx include:spf.domain.com include:websitewelcome.com -all

How to Publish the Hostgator SPF Record on Your DNS?

• Log in to your DNS management console

• Navigate to your desired domain 

• Specify your resource type: TXT

• Specify your hostname: _spf 

• Paste the value of your generated Hostgator SPF record 

• Save changes to configure SPF for Hostgator, for your domain

Make sure you have only a single SPF record configured for your domain on your DNS since multiple SPF records can lead to SPF failure.

Hopefully, this document helped you set up SPF for HostGator. You can look up and validate your DNS record for Hostgator using our free SPF record lookup tool, this will help you find errors, in order to correct them faster. Using this tool you can also view the includes for Hostgator, as we can see below