Domain Ownership Verification

Before you can send your first email from your Smaily account, the domain ownership of the sender’s email address has to be verified. This has to be done to launch campaigns, trigger automations and API queries. Domain ownership verification is an important security feature which locks the domain name in question to the verifying Smaily account, preventing malicious users from hijacking it.

To verify your domain ownership:

1. Click on the account name on the right in the menu bar and choose “Preferences” from the dropdown menu.
2. Navigate to the “Domains” tab and click on “Verify Domain”.
3. In the next view, enter the domain you wish to verify. Insert the domain in the field and click on “Add domain”.
4. You can verify the ownership of the domain either via email link or DNS verification.

Domain ownership verification via email

1. Choose “Verify via email” tab to verify domain ownership via link.
2. Insert an email address you have access to, has a valid working inbox and includes the same domain. Then click “Verify ownership”.
3. You’ll receive a verification letter on the previously inserted email address.
4. Click “verify domain” in the verification email or copy the link from the confirmation to your web browser’s address bar.
5. Confirm the verification process by clicking on “Verify ownership” and then proceed to the account.
6. Now the domain ownership has been verified and you can proceed with sending letters from Smaily.

Note! Ownership verification link is valid for 7 days.

Check your verified domains and domains pending verification in your account preferences under the “Domains” tab.

1. After inserting the domain you wish to verify, choose “DNS verification” tab to verify domain ownership via DNS settings.
2. Leave your Smaily account tab open and in a new browser tab, proceed to your domain service provider’s DNS settings (Veebimajutus, Zone, Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namespace, etc).
3. In the domain’s DNS settings you need to add a new TXT record.
4. Leave the “Record” field empty or add “@”.
5. Record “Type” must be “TXT”.
6. As a “Value”, go to your Smaily account tab and copy the record value from the ownership verification modal. (Begins with: smaily-domain-verification-key…)
7. Save the new record in DNS settings and then proceed back to your Smaily account.
8. In the domain ownership verification modal, click on “Verify domain” to start the verification process.
9. When everything is ok, the domain ownership should be verified.

Note!

When activating domain ownership verification via DNS, all previous domain ownership verifications via email link (under other Smaily accounts) will be revoked.

For each Smaily account using the same domain, and ownership verification via DNS has been established, you need to add a new unique TXT record for each separate Smaily account in your domain’s DNS settings.

DNS token based ownership verification method should always be preferred over email link based method. Link based method allows anybody with an access to an email inbox with the same domain name to verify the ownership of the said domain, and send completely legitimate looking emails from Smaily platform. DNS token based method provides a considerably stronger security model as it requires accessing the domain name’s DNS server.

The system continuously scans the DNS-verified domains for the validity of the verification token as part of its security suite. This implies the token must not be removed once configured to prevent ownership de-verification. The system will notify the technical contact email address, should any problems arise regarding domain ownership verification and validation.