Email Deliverability
Add DNS records in AWS Route 53
Exact steps for Route 53 — leave the root name BLANK and quote your TXT values.
Get to your DNS settings
- Open the AWS Console → Route 53 → Hosted zones.
- Click your domain’s hosted zone (a public hosted zone must already exist).
- Click “Create record”, keep Simple routing, and define the record.
- Click “Create records”.
The Route 53 gotcha: for the root/apex record, LEAVE THE NAME FIELD BLANK — do not enter "@". For a subdomain, type just the label (e.g. "focal._domainkey").
TXT values must be wrapped in double quotes, e.g. "v=spf1 include:<focal-send-host> ~all". CNAME values are not quoted.
Route 53 only serves your domain if your registrar’s nameservers point to this hosted zone’s four NS records — otherwise nothing resolves and verification never passes. Set a short TTL (e.g. 300) while setting up.
The #1 mistake: don’t type your full domain in the host/name field. When we ask for a record named "focal._domainkey.yourdomain.com", you enter only "focal._domainkey". Almost every DNS provider adds your domain back on automatically — type the whole thing and you get "focal._domainkey.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com", which silently fails. Enter only the part before your domain, and use "@" (or leave it blank — see your provider below) for the root.