Defaults.Exposed › September 2026 census › v10 registry › SPF policy strength
SPF policy strength
Methodology v10 · canonical ID spf-policy-strength · Email Security · scored · census as of September 5, 2026
A weak SPF only warns; a strict one actually blocks forgeries.
Definition
| Canonical ID | spf-policy-strength |
|---|---|
| Category | Email Security |
| Grade impact | Scored, counts toward the grade |
| Pass | The SPF record ends in a hardfail all-mechanism (-all), telling receivers to reject unauthorized senders. |
| Fail | The record ends in ~all (softfail), ?all (neutral), or +all (permits anyone), or no SPF exists. |
| Example (passing) | v=spf1 include:_spf.example-mailer.com -all |
No-data rule: when this check couldn't be determined for a domain (timeout, SERVFAIL, redacted source) it returns N/A and is excluded from that domain's scoring denominator: "couldn't determine" is never counted as a failure. "Determined absent" is a real fail.
Prevalence across the census
18.2% of graded domains publish SPF with a hardfail (-all) policy (57,704,425 of 316,600,902, as of September 5, 2026).
Softfail (~all) records count toward SPF presence but not full policy strength.
Census denominator: 316,600,902 graded domains. Aggregates only: never an individual domain's result.
Fix it
Plain-English impact, cost of ignoring it, and step-by-step remediation: defaults.exposed/fix/spf
Cite this check
Defaults.Exposed, "SPF policy strength (spf-policy-strength)", Grading Methodology v10 (census as of September 5, 2026). https://defaults.exposed/methodology/spf-policy-strength
Permalink: https://defaults.exposed/methodology/spf-policy-strength ·
All 34 checks: v10 registry ·
Machine-readable: /methodology/checks.json ·
Licence: open data