Since 2024 Gmail and Yahoo have required bulk senders to publish SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Most small businesses aren't bulk senders, but the same checks feed the spam filters that decide whether their invoices and replies land in the inbox. So I measured how many small shops actually have them. Method: 300 random domains of small independent businesses (guitar pedal, amp and pickup makers from three directories we run), with DNS read from Google's public resolver on 2026-10-28. 267 of them receive mail (they have MX records), so all numbers below are out of 267. - 104 (39%) have no DMARC record at all. 141 (53%) have one set to p=none, which only monitors. Just 22 (8%) tell receivers to quarantine or reject spoofed mail - 51 (19%) have no SPF record, and 6 publish two SPF records, which makes SPF fail outright - DKIM showed up at the common selectors for 124 (46%). That's a floor: DKIM can sit at a custom selector I didn't probe - Only 84 (31%) have SPF, DKIM and DMARC all in place Chart: DMARC policy across the 267 domains Chart: share with each record in place Most are one- or two-person shops. 107 of them (40%) run mail on Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, where the fix is a few DNS records. Usually nobody notices they're missing until a customer says "your email went to spam". I turned the check into a free tool. Type your domain and see your SPF, DKIM and DMARC status, with the fix in plain words. No signup: https://emailauthfix.pages.dev/ Screenshot: the checker's result for one of our own domains Tell me what it gets wrong. Custom DKIM selectors and deeply nested SPF includes are where I expect misses. Disclosure: There's an optional USD 24 report that writes the exact records for your domain and mail provider; code SIDEPROJECT50 takes 50% off for this sub. Passing these checks doesn't guarantee inbox placement. It removes one common reason mail gets filtered.   submitted by   /u/FFFrank [link]   [comments]