It’s easy to find out who is sending email to your parked domain names.
Squadhelp recently enabled custom DNS settings on domain names. When you point your domain names to Squadhelp’s nameservers, you can now add MX and TXT records to those domain names.
One of the cool things this enables is to set up catch-all email addresses for your domain names.
With catch-all addresses, you can receive any email sent to your domain names. This is a good way to track non-web traffic to your domains and might indicate sales opportunities if people are confusing your domain with someone else’s business.
Here’s how to start receiving any email sent to domains in your Squadhelp account.
1. Sign up for ForwardEmail.net
ForwardEmail.net offers a free tier with unlimited catch-all email address forwarding. That’s all you need to set it up.
It’s best to sign up using the email address you’d like to receive the forwarded messages. Remember that you might start receiving a lot of emails, so you might want to choose a mailbox you set up specifically for this purpose.
2. Get the MX and TXT records you need to add to your domain.
You’ll enter a domain name to get these records, but it doesn’t matter which domain at Squadhelp you enter. All mail sent to your Squadhelp domains will be forwarded.
3. Go to the Custom DNS Settings in Squadhelp.
The Custom DNS Settings page lets you create MX and TXT records. Copy the data from ForwardEmail.net and create the records at Squadhelp.
Now that you’re setting up MX records on your domains, you should also set up an SPF record. This will prevent people from spoofing your domain when sending mail. Create a TXT record with the value v=spf1 -all
4. Verify your settings in ForwardEmail.net
Click the link in ForwardEmail.net to verify that your DNS is set up correctly. This verification can take a while, so be patient.
Once the DNS change propagates, you’ll start receiving emails sent to any of your domains, such as [email protected], [email protected], etc.
John Berryhill says
“ might indicate sales opportunities if people are confusing your domain with someone else’s business.”
Just remember not to delete it if you get sued, because getting rid of evidence of actual consumer confusion is probably going to leave a trail.
DimeScout says
I don’t recommend this as you are going to get bombarded lol.
MapleDots says
That is dangerous advice, I don’t recommend anyone using catch all’s. If anyone is thinking about this please understand it could adversely affect the way your domain is handled by google moving forward. It is difficult to get your domain off the spammer list and having a catch all allows spammers opportunities you may not be aware of.
Andrew Allemann says
You can add an SPF record to ensure people don’t spoof your domain in spam. I’ve added that to the post. If you’re referring to something else, please let me know.
Lynn Richard says
The problem with the free option is it shows your email address in the txt record. I tried the paid version, which doesn’t show your email, but it requires a separate txt verification record for each domain and with Squadhelp only allowing entry in bulk it looks like multiple verification records per domain and ForwardEmail.net gives an error. I would love a solution.