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Email Protocols

MX Record(Mail Exchange Record)

A DNS record that specifies the mail servers responsible for receiving email for a domain.

Definition

An MX (Mail Exchange) record is a type of DNS record that specifies which mail servers are authorized to receive email for a domain. When someone sends an email to your domain, their mail server looks up your MX records to find where to deliver the message. MX records are essential for email to function for any domain.

Why It Matters

Without proper MX records, your domain cannot receive email. For email marketing, understanding MX records helps with deliverability troubleshooting and domain authentication setup. MX records also indicate which email service a domain uses.

How It Works

MX records are configured in your domain's DNS settings. They contain a priority number and mail server hostname. Lower priority numbers are tried first. When mail is sent to your domain, the sending server queries DNS for MX records, then connects to the specified mail server to deliver.

Best Practices

  • 1Ensure MX records are properly configured for your receiving domain
  • 2Use multiple MX records with different priorities for redundancy
  • 3Verify MX records when troubleshooting email receiving issues
  • 4Keep MX record TTL (time to live) reasonable for quick updates

Frequently Asked Questions

Use DNS lookup tools like MXToolbox, dig, or nslookup to query MX records for your domain. Your domain registrar or DNS provider's dashboard also shows configured records.

MX records are for receiving email, not sending. However, some spam filters check if your sending domain can receive replies (has valid MX records), so having them helps deliverability.