Learn how to protect your domain reputation, avoid spam blacklists, and keep your business emails trusted with these essential compliance steps
After 20 years running b:web, I’ve learned that some of the biggest risks to our clients online presence are things they don’t even know exist. This month alone, I’ve spoken to three clients about their domain reputations, and in every case, the business owner had no idea they were putting their own business at risk.
Think of your domain reputation like a credit score for your email and website. Every email you send from your domain — from your phone, computer, a contact form on your site, or a newsletter — affects this invisible score.
Here’s what can happen when your domain reputation is damaged:
You might not notice these things actually happening until it’s too late. Fixing your domain reputation can take weeks or even months, so protecting it from the start is essential.
A Real-Life Example. This week, a client told me they’d been sending weekly newsletters straight from their own Outlook account in Office 365. They were taking the time to BCC the recipients and storing all the email addresses in a Word document. They thought they were being organised, saving both time and money, but in reality, they were breaking the rules:
The scary part? Just one complaint to their ISP could blacklist the entire domain. Suddenly, emails aren’t reaching clients, suppliers, or even internal teams. It’s a business nightmare waiting to happen, and you might not even notice it until it’s too late. Microsoft could suspend your account, and regulators can hand out fines if your marketing isn’t compliant.
The good news is most of these risks are easy to prevent if you take a few simple steps. Here’s what we recommend for business owners:
After 20 years in this industry, I’ve seen that ignoring these small technical steps today can turn into a crisis tomorrow. Protecting your domain reputation might seem invisible, but its impact on your business is very real. The investment to get it right? Usually a few hundred pounds. The cost of recovery after blacklisting? Weeks of lost business and emergency IT support that can run into thousands.
Would you like to review your email compliance? We offer comprehensive audits that identify risks before they become expensive problems. please do get in touch if you would like a consultation.
Coming up in Part 2: We’ll look at how emails sent from your website, including contact forms, password resets, and other automated messages — can also affect your domain reputation. We’ll cover why websites need to be hack-free, not sending spam, and fully secure to protect your domain and business.
DNS records control your domain settings, including where emails are sent from and which servers are trusted. You can access them through your domain registrar (such as 123 Reg, Hostinger, or GoDaddy), but it’s highly recommended that you only make changes if you fully understand them (it’s very easy to make an error that can take time to undo. If you simply want to inspect your domain’s DNS records, you can use a public lookup tool such as www.who.is, MXToolbox, or DNSChecker to view them safely.
SPF records are added to your domain’s DNS to list the servers you’ve allowed to send emails on your behalf. Valid servers might include your website, marketing email service (Mailchimp), or your email provider (Microsoft, Workspaces). When email services receive your email, they cross-check the sending server’s IP address against your SPF records to make sure the email comes from an authorised server and not someone pretending to be you.
DKIM is a mathematical encryption algorithm that is made public via your domain’s DNS. Authorised servers (as specified in your SPF) use DKIM to create a digital signature that is added to the content of your emails when they are sent. Receiving email services use DKIM and your domain’s DNS to verify the signature, ensuring the email hasn’t been tampered with and really comes from your domain. Even though the public key is visible in DNS, the signature remains secure because only the private key on your authorised servers can create it.
DMARC is a record added to your domain’s DNS that builds on SPF and DKIM to give you more control over what happens when an email fails those checks. It tells receiving email services how to handle messages that don’t pass SPF or DKIM – for example, to deliver, quarantine, or reject them. The receiving systems also generate reports and send them back to the address you specify in your DMARC record, so you can see who is sending emails on your behalf and whether they pass authentication.
UK rules for sending marketing emails, including opt-out requirements.
GDPR is a European law that makes sure personal data is handled safely and responsibly, and it gives people control over how their own data is used.
In preparing this article I asked AI to draw up some references for me and here;s what it came up with.
