Please help in configuring Sendgrid and HostGator mx records

sendgridsmtpspam-marked

I am trying to send emails through Sendgrid SMTP and unfortunately, all emails were landing to spam. Upon checking from mail-tester.com service, I got to know an error message that "You are not allowed to use one of your sender email addresses" with a minus 3 score which I believe is causing the emails to land in the spam folder.

Here's the report URL: https://www.mail-tester.com/web-7n29r&reloaded=2

Sendgrid support is worthless in this case and continuously pestering me to upgrade to a dedicated IP and pro account, while I have no understanding of their platform to make the upgrade.

I did white label all the sending domains and link tracking.

Please help

Best Answer

Your test is correct and by opening the explanation you whould have avoided asking this question.

[Sender ID] gunsafeslab.com does not allow your server 167.89.106.6 to use naser@gunsafeslab.com

Sender ID is like SPF, but it checks the FROM address, not the bounce address.

What we retained as your current SPF record is:

v=spf1 a mx include:websitewelcome.com include:sendgrid.net ~all

More information about this error:

gunsafeslab.com ... _spf.google.com: Maximum DNS-interactive terms limit (10) exceeded

In order to send mail from Sendgrid your SPF record should have include:sendgrid.net.

Now it has include:websitewelcome.com having include:spf.websitewelcome.com include:spf1.websitewelcome.com include:_spf.google.com having more includes inside them. This will cause more than 10 DNS queries and the SPF checker will stop. Whether the 167.89.106.6 eventually exists in one of these includes doesn't matter, because it won't get there.

One way to sanitize these superfluous queries would be querying TXT records of what have been included; try to avoid includes that are only doing more includes. Here's a little chart showing all the DNS queries caused by "v=spf1 a mx include:websitewelcome.com include:sendgrid.net ~all":

a mx include:websitewelcome.com include:sendgrid.net

All these causes a new DNS query:

  • Red label shows every include: only containing more include: methods.
  • Orange label shows include: methods also having actual ip4/ip6 methods (green).
  • Yellow label are other methods: a and mx needs to be queried separately, too.

Moreover, this has nothing to do with MX records as they are for receiving mail, not for sending. Also, your A and MX are eventually the same server, and could be replaced with single ip4:192.254.236.206.

If you only send mail from this one server and Sendgrid, your minimal SPF record would be:

"v=spf1 ip4:192.254.236.206 include:sendgrid.net ~all"`

That would cause only one extra DNS query. If you also send mail from Gmail, that'd be five with 

"v=spf1 ip4:192.254.236.206 include:sendgrid.net include:_spf.google.com ~all"

ip4:192.254.236.206 include:sendgrid.net include:_spf.google.com

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