"No DMARC Record Found"

If you come across any of these common prompts:

• No DMARC record
• No DMARC record found
• DMARC record is missing
• DMARC record not found
• No DMARC record published
• Unable to find DMARC record

it simply means your domain is not yet configured with DMARC. Let's look at what that means and how to fix it.

What is DMARC and why do you need email authentication for your domain?

DMARC is one of the most widely adopted email authentication standards. It lets domain owners tell receiving servers how to handle messages that claim to come from their domain but fail authentication checks.

This helps protect your domain from being used in spoofing and impersonation attacks. DMARC builds on the SPF and DKIM standards to let receivers verify whether mail using your domain is legitimate.

Protect Your Business from Impersonation and Spoofing with DMARC

Email is one of the easiest ways for cybercriminals to abuse your brand name.

By forging your domain, attackers can send phishing emails to your own employees and customers. Because SMTP was not built with protection against forged "From" fields, an attacker can spoof email headers to make mail appear to come from your domain. This both compromises security and damages your brand reputation.

Email spoofing can lead to Business Email Compromise (BEC),loss of company information, unauthorized access to confidential data, and financial loss. Importantly, SPF and DKIM on their own do not fully prevent this, because neither ties the authenticated result to the domain your recipients actually see in the From: field.

This is where DMARC comes in. It uses SPF and/or DKIM together with alignment, and tells the receiving servers of your clients, employees, and partners how to respond when a message using your domain fails authentication. This gives you strong protection against direct-domain spoofing and puts you in control of how your domain is used in email.

As a bonus, a well-configured authentication setup that includes DMARC can also support your email deliverability and sender reputation.

Adding the Missing DMARC Record to Your Domain

It can be confusing to see prompts like "Hostname returned a missing or invalid DMARC record" when checking a domain with online tools.

To fix the "No DMARC record found" issue, you publish a DMARC record for your domain. This means adding a TXT record in your DNS at the _dmarc.example.com hostname, following the DMARC specification. A basic DMARC TXT record looks like this:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]

With that published, the "No DMARC record found" prompt is resolved, since your domain now has a DMARC record.

But is that enough? No. Adding the record clears the missing-record warning, but a policy of p=none provides no enforcement, so on its own it does not yet stop impersonation or spoofing. It is the starting point, not the destination.

I've fixed the "No DMARC record found" error, what's next?

Once your record is published, make sure it is valid and then build toward enforcement:

• Check your record with a DMARC checker tool to confirm it is valid.
• DMARC relies on SPF and/or DKIM, so make sure you have valid, published SPF and DKIM records and that they align with your From: domain.
• Use your aggregate (RUA) reports to monitor your mail streams over time.
• Once your legitimate mail is authenticating and aligning correctly, move your policy from p=none toward enforcement (quarantine or reject, depending on your mail flows),so the record actually protects your domain rather than just monitoring it.